Larissa Nocko (p), Frederico Bertholini , Thiago Rosa

This paper analyzes the Brazilian Fiscal Responsibility Law (FRL) Reports and its comparability among different states, municipalities and periods of time, with a special attention to Brasilia. The Capital of Brazil is the odd one out among other federative units in the complex Brazilian federative system. In terms of public finances, the city is neither a state nor a municipality. It stands apart with a legal status that grants revenue collection from both competencies and also from central government special transfers. Additionally, other states – with a less confusing fiscal status – resort to legal decisions from local audit courts to report values based on its own methodologies. Thus, we suggest a new measurement approach for debt and wages spending indicators on FRL reports, in order to make them comparable. This new approach indicate a recent rise on wages spending not detected by the official report. In Brasilia, Justice and the Prosecution Service spending limits are informed in a separate FRL report, since these public services are paid by the central government. The new methodology estimates the fiscal impact as if they were paid by the local government instead. Whereas the Justice limit should reach a maximum of 6% of local net revenues, the total amount spent with this service is around 10%. Concerning the Prosecution Service which was supposed to reach a maximum of 2%, the share of net revenue spent reaches 3.5%. We demonstrate that there can be two opposite ways of understanding Brasilia, depending on how central government transfers are treated. Although wages spending indicators are worse when transfers are considered, the debt indicators turns out to show much more fiscal sustainability then the standard FRL measure.

Margherita Gerolimetto (p), Licia Ferranna , Stefano Magrini (p)

Many recent studies have documented a large variability of wages across Metropolitan Statistical Areas in the United States in the last decades. One aspect on which, to our knowledge, should be shed some light is the parallel phenomenon concerning a large variability of wages also within the areas.
In this paper we address both issues with a particular focus on the role played by agglomeration economies and urban governance structure, intended as the organization of formal institutions of local governments.
We develop a two-step analysis: in the first step we explain nominal wages in terms of workers’ characteristics, local industry composition and local area fixed effects. Then we exploit these estimates to explain, firstly, disparities in local area fixed effects, secondly, local area wage inequalities. These explanations investigate the role of several factors among which measures of agglomeration economies and measures of the level of fragmentation in local governance.

Ariel Gustavo Letti (p), Luis E. Vila , Mauricio Bittencourt

The affirmative actions (AA) aimed to increase the accessibility in Brazilian Higher Education Institutions (HEIs). It started in a few institutions in 2000, and progressively became larger until the approval of the law 12711 in the year 2012, which implemented the quotas policy in the federal institutions.
This study evaluates one dimension of the impacts of this AA, and compares the results in relation to the academic efficiency among diverse undergraduate groups. The main focus was to compare the results between AA beneficiaries and non-beneficiaries for entrance in higher education institutions. We also consider differences among diverse beneficiaries groups (ethnic/racial, socioeconomic, public high school), as well as, differences from public and private institutions and regional differences.
We applied DEA methodology considering each student as a unit of analysis and following the strategy developed by Thanassoulis (1999) and extendend by Portela e Thanassoulis (2001). The input variable considered was the ENEM (High School Nacional Exam) mark of each student when starting the undergraduate course. The output variable was the ENADE (National Performance Exam) mark by the same student when concluding the undergraduate course.
The data come primarily from the National Institute of Teaching and Educational Research (INEP/MEC, ‘IDD - Difference indicator between observed and expected performance’). The application of ENADE occurs to each course in each three-year interval with different courses by year, so the period 2014-2016 captures all courses. For ENADE data, the INEP builds a new database (IDD) including the ENEM mark from each student.
The results indicate that:
(i) there are differences among the students’ groups, but they are small: the AA-beneficiaries academic efficiency means was 66% while the non-beneficiaries mean was 64%;
(ii) among the beneficiaries groups, the highest academic efficiency mean was 67% (related to having studied in public high schools) and the lowest was 62% (related to the income criterium);
(iii) the difference between AA-beneficiaries and non-beneficiaries are positive in the private institutions (65% to 62%) and negative in the public ones (68% to 69%);
(iv) the regional analysis shows that the highest difference occurs in the North Region and the smallest in the Midlewest.
(v) among the courses, the teacher training courses present the higher difference (66% to 62%);
Results highlight the importance of these AA to decrease access inequalities to brazilian higher education.
The most important limitation in this study is not considering information about all entrance students.