Sup­por­ted by the Lau­des Foun­da­ti­on, the pro­ject intends to deve­lop and pro­mo­te pro­po­sals for expan­ding the sco­pe and incre­a­sing the effi­ci­ency of the Bra­zi­li­an soci­al pro­tec­ti­on sys­tem – whi­ch impro­ves wor­kers’ living con­di­ti­ons and makes it easi­er to pro­mo­te a just and gre­en tran­si­ti­on. More spe­ci­fi­cally, it aims to analy­ze how growing infor­ma­lity and fle­xi­bi­li­za­ti­on of labor legis­la­ti­on and wor­king arran­ge­ments are res­pon­si­ble for incre­a­sing ine­qua­lity in Bra­zil – making wor­kers more vul­ne­ra­ble and less able to demand their rights – and pro­po­se solutions.

Sup­por­ted by the Ford Foun­da­ti­on, the pro­ject is deve­lo­ped in a part­nership with the Raci­al Jus­ti­ce and Law Nucleus (NJRD) of the Getú­lio Var­gas Foun­da­ti­on, coor­di­na­ted by Thi­a­go Ampa­ro and Ales­san­dra Bene­di­to. The objec­ti­ve is to study raci­al ine­qua­li­ti­es from the pers­pec­ti­ves of Eco­no­mics and Law and their inter­sec­ti­ons. The focus is to unders­tand the effects of public spen­ding, the impact of struc­tu­ral reforms and the rede­sign of fis­cal rules, the taxa­ti­on model, among other aspects, from a raci­al perspective.

Finan­ced by the Open Soci­ety Foun­da­ti­ons, this pro­ject aims to pro­po­se paths for a gre­en and inclu­si­ve reco­very in the Ama­zon Regi­on by con­si­de­ring that its con­tri­bu­ti­on to the Bra­zi­li­an envi­ron­men­tal issue must be addres­sed by join­tly eva­lu­a­ting the role of defo­res­ta­ti­on, the exis­ting eco­no­mic struc­tu­re, and the soci­al and regi­o­nal ine­qua­li­ti­es. 

Finan­ced by the Samam­baia Filan­tro­pi­as, this pro­ject aims to deve­lop pro­po­sals for a tax reform in Bra­zil that gua­ran­te­es the pro­gres­si­ve inci­den­ce of taxa­ti­on, so that it beco­mes an ins­tru­ment to fight ine­qua­li­ti­es. To do so, dif­fe­rent pro­po­sals will be analy­zed, such as incre­a­sing taxa­ti­on of inco­me and wealth, redu­cing taxes on con­sump­ti­on and pro­duc­ti­on, and the pos­si­bi­li­ti­es or esta­blishing a car­bon tax that does not bur­den the poo­rest families.

Finan­ced by the Open Soci­ety Foun­da­ti­on, this pro­ject aims to assess the impact of fis­cal mea­su­res taken by the Bra­zi­li­an govern­ment over the past few years on the per­so­nal and func­ti­o­nal dis­tri­bu­ti­on of inco­me, paying par­ti­cu­lar atten­ti­on to the poli­ci­es rela­ted to sus­tai­ning eco­no­mic acti­vity during the Covid-19 pan­de­mic, such as Auxí­lio Emer­gen­ci­al. Further­mo­re, it intends to map nati­o­nal and inter­na­ti­o­nal ini­ti­a­ti­ves of Gre­en New Deals, com­pa­ring their spe­ci­fi­ci­ti­es and eva­lu­a­ting their pos­si­ble effects. Finally, this pro­ject aims to revi­sit the Bra­zi­li­an legis­la­ti­on regar­ding the spen­ding cei­ling, com­pa­ring it with other inter­na­ti­o­nal legis­la­ti­on and, based on this com­pa­ri­son, pro­po­sing alter­na­ti­ve sce­na­ri­os for con­trol­ling govern­ment expen­di­tu­re that are con­sis­tent with a gre­en and inclu­si­ve eco­no­mic growth. 

Dura­ti­on: 2020–2022

Finan­ced by the Inter­na­ti­o­nal Labour Orga­ni­za­ti­on, the rese­ar­ch aims to pro­du­ce coun­try case stu­di­es on mul­ti­pli­er effects of soci­al pro­tec­ti­on expen­di­tu­res on Gross Domes­tic Pro­duct, hou­sehold con­sump­ti­on, and invest­ment in seve­ral coun­tri­es, using the Struc­tu­ral VAR metho­do­logy. When used for Bra­zil, the model indi­ca­ted a rela­ti­vely high mul­ti­pli­er effect for soci­al bene­fits, com­pa­ra­ble to the level found for public invest­ments. In this pro­ject, the esti­ma­ti­on of mul­ti­pli­ers for other coun­tri­es with a metho­do­logy simi­lar to that used in Bra­zil will allow the com­pa­ri­son of results. At a time when seve­ral coun­tri­es are expan­ding their safety nets to res­pond to the effects of the Covid-19 pan­de­mic, the results obtai­ned are even more relevant.

Dura­ti­on: 2020–2022

Finan­ced by the Ger­man Fede­ral Minis­try of Edu­ca­ti­on and Rese­ar­ch (BMBF), Meci­la is a joint pro­ject of the fol­lowing Ger­man and Latin Ame­ri­can rese­ar­ch ins­ti­tu­ti­ons: Freie Uni­ver­sität Ber­lin (coor­di­na­ti­on); Ibe­ro-Ame­ri­ka­nis­ches Ins­ti­tut (Ber­lin); Uni­ver­sität zu Köln (Colog­ne); Uni­ver­si­da­de de São Pau­lo and Cen­tro Bra­si­lei­ro de Aná­li­se e Pla­ne­ja­men­to (São Pau­lo); Ins­ti­tu­to de Inves­ti­ga­ci­o­nes en Huma­ni­da­des y Cien­ci­as Soci­a­les (Uni­ver­si­dad Naci­o­nal de La Plata/Conicet, La Pla­ta); and El Cole­gio de Méxi­co (Mexi­co City). Meci­la exa­mi­nes past and pre­sent forms of soci­al, poli­ti­cal, and cul­tu­ral con­vi­vi­a­lity in Latin Ame­ri­ca and the Carib­be­an. It employs con­vi­vi­a­lity as an analy­ti­cal con­cept to des­cri­be ways of living together in spe­ci­fic con­texts cha­rac­te­ri­zed by diver­sity and ine­qua­lity. It links stu­di­es about inter­class, inte­reth­nic, inter­cul­tu­ral, inter­re­li­gi­ous, and gen­der rela­ti­ons in Latin Ame­ri­ca and the Carib­be­an with stu­di­es about con­vi­vi­a­lity beyond the regi­on. In doing so, the Cen­tre aims to esta­blish an inno­va­ti­ve exchan­ge with bene­fits for both Euro­pe­an and Latin Ame­ri­can research.

CNPq level 1A Rese­ar­ch Pro­duc­ti­vity Grant awar­ded to Gil­ber­to Tadeu Lima. The pro­ject con­ti­nu­es a rese­ar­ch agen­da that has been deve­lo­ped in recent years in the field of macrody­na­mics. Its gene­ral and spe­ci­fic objec­ti­ves are (i) Macrody­na­mics of the use and expan­si­on of the ins­tal­led pro­duc­ti­ve capa­city, inco­me dis­tri­bu­ti­on, and eco­no­mic growth; (ii) Macrody­na­mics with agent-based mode­ling (ABM); and (iii) Macrody­na­mics of eco­no­mic sta­bi­li­za­ti­on with infla­ti­on and out­put tar­gets. It con­sists of a bro­ad effort to model spe­ci­fic issu­es in the area of macrody­na­mics that starts from the epis­te­mo­lo­gi­cal assump­ti­on that macro­e­co­no­mic the­ory needs sty­li­zed models at least as much as it needs sty­li­zed facts. Through the ela­bo­ra­ti­on of models based on empi­ri­cal and the­o­re­ti­cally plau­si­ble hypothe­ses, such mode­ling allows selec­ti­on, iso­la­ti­on, and analy­sis of vari­ous mecha­nisms underlying the nexu­ses and inte­rac­ti­ons betwe­en eco­no­mic vari­a­bles of interest. 

Dura­ti­on: 2019–2024

CNPq Level 2 Rese­ar­ch Pro­duc­ti­vity Grant awar­ded to Lau­ra Car­va­lho. The pro­ject pro­po­ses to extend the tra­di­ti­on of Neo-Kalec­ki­an macro­e­co­no­mic models to incor­po­ra­te, in addi­ti­on to the func­ti­o­nal dis­tri­bu­ti­on of inco­me, chan­ges in the per­so­nal dis­tri­bu­ti­on of inco­me from work, capi­tal, and wealth. It also aims to intro­du­ce redis­tri­bu­ti­ve eco­no­mic policy vari­a­bles (eg mini­mum wage, inco­me trans­fers, tax struc­tu­re, exchan­ge rate) and their spe­ci­fic effects on aggre­ga­te demand and eco­no­mic growth. Finally, it aims to fill gaps in the lite­ra­tu­re on the rela­ti­onship betwe­en the pro­duc­ti­ve struc­tu­re, the com­po­si­ti­on of employ­ment, the edu­ca­ti­o­nal level, and the wage dis­tri­bu­ti­on in the economy.

Dura­ti­on: 2019–2022

This rese­ar­ch pro­ject aims to iden­tify the sty­le of deve­lop­ment that cha­rac­te­ri­zed the Bra­zi­li­an eco­nomy during the recent long expan­si­on (2003–2014), to exa­mi­ne the pos­si­bi­li­ti­es and limits of com­bi­ning eco­no­mic growth and reduc­ti­on of ine­qua­li­ti­es. “Sty­le of deve­lop­ment,” in the cur­rent pro­ject, encom­pas­ses not only cumu­la­ti­ve pro­ces­ses betwe­en demand and sup­ply struc­tu­res but also their rela­ti­ons with the dyna­mic inte­rac­ti­on betwe­en demand and inco­me dis­tri­bu­ti­on. The fra­mework com­bi­nes, in this way, the Kalec­ki­an lite­ra­tu­re on growth and dis­tri­bu­ti­on with a strand of Latin-Ame­ri­can struc­tu­ra­lism that begins with Fur­ta­do’s (1966) work on stag­na­ti­on and cul­mi­na­tes with Pin­to’s (1976) for­mu­la­ti­on. Spe­ci­fi­cally, the pro­ject will con­sist of a seri­es of arti­cles that has three objec­ti­ves. The first is to inves­ti­ga­te empi­ri­cally the rela­ti­onship betwe­en inco­me dis­tri­bu­ti­on, the sec­to­ral com­po­si­ti­on of hou­seholds’ aggre­ga­te con­sump­ti­on, and the sec­to­ral com­po­si­ti­on of out­put and employ­ment, to assess the vali­dity of the underlying ele­ments of the cumu­la­ti­ve pro­cess that I call the “eco­no­mic anti­mi­ra­cle” (Rugitsky, 2017). The second is to unders­tand the cycli­cal dyna­mics of the pro­fit rate and out­put, inclu­ding an exa­mi­na­ti­on of the three inter­pre­ta­ti­ons about the rela­ti­on betwe­en the dis­tri­bu­ti­ve con­flict, pro­fits, invest­ment, and eco­no­mic policy sug­ges­ted by Ser­ra­no and Sum­ma (2018), as well as an empi­ri­cal inves­ti­ga­ti­on of the vali­dity of the pro­fit sque­e­ze hypothe­sis for the Bra­zi­li­an eco­nomy. Last, the third objec­ti­ve is com­pa­ring the Bra­zi­li­an case with that of other South-Ame­ri­can eco­no­mi­es that were simi­larly affec­ted by the com­mo­di­ti­es boom, from the stand­point of both the cumu­la­ti­ve pro­cess betwe­en sup­ply and demand struc­tu­res and the cycli­cal dynamics.

Dura­ti­on: 2019–2020