ADTV 2019 | Jorge Castaneda: Turmoil in South America or a new stability?

The aim of this paper is to assess the regional economic impact of the lockdown measures ordered by the national government to prevent the spread of COVID-19. Using an input–output model, we estimate the economic loss of extracting groups of formal and informal workers from different economic sectors. Results show monthly economic losses that represent between 0.5% and 6.1% of national GDP, depending on the scenario considered. Accommodation and food services, real estate, administr ...

Our senior fellow, Otaviano Canuto, has contributed to Science Direct academic Journal, with a research paper entitled « Does the Brazilian policy for oil revenues distribution foster investment in human capital? », Volume 88, May 2020, 104760. This paper assesses the effect of oil revenues on health and education indicators (measures for human capital) in the Brazilian municipalities using exogenous oil price variations. The Oil Law of 1997, apart from to hugely increase the amoun ...

Last December, Covid-19 news emerged from China and, as the epicenter of the pandemic moved to Europe in February, and then to the United States in March, the news hotspots moved there too. However, there has been only a few global news streams about how South American countries, and Argentina in particular, are fighting against the pandemic. As a country with a new president, who has started this year with a preexistent economic crisis, it is worth giving a look at the current loca ...

The outbreak in China has already affected economic sectors in Latin America. Is there more to come? China’s economy has come to a sudden stop. Large parts of the country remain in shutdown mode after the end of the Lunar New Year holiday, with national passenger traffic declining by 85% on the Wednesday after the break compared to 2019.   Outside of China, the impact of the slowdown has already been felt, with companies like Apple and Land Rover warning of lower production, as pa ...

This paper estimates the socioeconomic impacts of the emergence and expansion of e-hailing services in São Paulo, Brazil. Combining data from a major service provider, individual level data from a representative travel diary survey and a structural traffic network simulation, we evaluate the impact of e-hailing on commuters' travel time and accessibility. We then estimate the effect of these changes on workers' productivity. Finally, using a Spatial Computable General Equilibrium (S ...

Throughout my last 15 years working in multilateral institutions, many times around the world I was asked to speak about the success of poverty reduction in Brazil during the new millennium. Last week, someone who was on such an occasion in October 2013 in Nairobi asked me what my numbers had become after these recent years of precarious macroeconomic performance and high unemployment in the country. I replied that they have changed ... in part! Indeed, the fact that, even without ...

The Brazilian economy pays a price in terms of productivity foregone because of its lack of trade openness. A trade opening process would bring an adjustment impact that could nonetheless be mitigated with public policies that facilitate labor mobility and job migration. Benefits from trade opening would also hinge on policy improvements in complementary areas, such as infrastructure investments, business environment and others. The Brazilian economy would benefit from opening trad ...

Brazilian conditional cash transfers are small amounts of money the government distributes directly to very poor households on condition that their children attend school and are vaccinated. The money goes to the women of the household, because research undertaken in the 1990s – and later confirmed in other countries – showed an increase in babies' height and weight when women have more control over household income. Greater control over household resources by women can strengthen a ...

Thinking creatively the bilateral relationship of Brazil and Morocco is quintessential for enhancing its reach and possibilities. The world is currently facing enormous changes whose outcomes are unpredictable. From a revival in the cold war realist dispute of power between the United States and Russia, the collapse of International Law in relation to Ukraine, Crimea and the South China Sea, BREXIT and the imponderable results that may impact the European Union and to the possible d ...