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on Central and South America |
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Issue of 2009‒07‒17
four papers chosen by |
| By: | Bresser-Pereira, Luiz Carlos |
| Abstract: | In the 1960s and 1970s Latin America was the setting of modernizing military coups and of the transition of their intellectuals from nationalism to associated dependency. In the 1950s two groups of public intellectuals, organized around ECLAC, in Santiago, Chile, and ISEB, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, pioneer the thinking on Latin American societies and economies (including Brazil’s) from a nationalist standpoint. ECLAC mainly criticized the law of comparative advantage and its underlying imperialist implications; ISEB focused on the political definition of a national-developmentalist strategy. The idea of a national bourgeoisie was key to this interpretation of Latin America. The Cuban revolution, the economic crisis of the 1960s, and the military coups in the South Cone, however, made room for criticism of these ideas from a new interpretation – the dependency one. By fully rejecting possibility of a national bourgeoisie, two versions of the dependency interpretation (the “associated†and the “over-exploitation†interpretations) also rejected the possibility of a national-development strategy. Only a third one, the “national-dependent†interpretation, continued to affirm the need for and possibility of a national bourgeoisie and a national strategy. Yet, it was the associated-dependency interpretation that was dominant in Latin America in the 1970s and 1980s. |
| Date: | 2009–04–13 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fgv:eesptd:185&r=lam |
| By: | Irena Dushi (Social Security Administration); Marjorie Honig (Hunter College and CUNY) |
| Abstract: | We use information from Social Security earnings records to examine the accuracy of employee reports of annual contributions to tax-deferred pension plans. As employer defined benefit pensions are replaced by voluntary contribution plans, employee understanding of the link between annual contribution decisions and post-retirement wealth is becoming increasingly important. We compare the accuracy of employee reports of annual contributions in a sample of respondents in the original HRS cohort and in a sample of two younger cohorts, the War Babies and Early Baby Boomers. Tax-deferred plans are more common among the younger cohorts and we expected that they would be better informed about their annual contributions. We find that, among respondents for whom SSA administrative records are available, those in the younger cohorts were more likely to report accurately that they were included in a tax-deferred plan. Contrary to our expectation, identical proportions (70 percent) of respondents in both the older and the younger cohorts accurately reported whether they made a contribution during the interview year. Furthermore, we find no significant difference between the older and younger cohorts in the degree of reporting accuracy of contribution amounts, with approximately one-half of respondents in each cohort reporting contributions within plus/minus 25 percent of the true value. Both cohorts’ self-reported contributions are systematically larger than the true values. Finally, both self-reported and W-2 contributions are significantly larger among respondents in the WB/EBB cohort. |
| Date: | 2008–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mrr:papers:wp201&r=lam |
| By: | Corseuil, Carlos H. L. |
| Abstract: | In this paper we build an integrated framework of the labor market in which worker replacement, job creation and job destruction are decided simultaneously at the firm level, providing a rigorous instrument for the analysis of worker flows. The main features of the model are uncertainty related to worker X firm match quality and search frictions. Worker flow components are decided as firms learn about the quality of their matches. A negative cor- relation between replacement and job creation arises from this mechanism. The model also provides several implications for firm dynamics, which are all confirmed by related empirical papers. |
| Keywords: | worker flows; firm dynamics |
| JEL: | J63 J64 |
| Date: | 2009–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:16157&r=lam |
| By: | Corseuil, Carlos H. L. |
| Abstract: | The present paper provides empirical evidence compatible with a proposed theoretical framework to explain the joint determination of two components of worker flows: worker replacement and job creation. We show that a negative correlation between job creation and replacement across firms emerges from such a framework. An empirical model is specified and its parameters are estimated taking into account two serious problems: measurement error and endogenous regressor. We take advantage of a matched employer-employee longitudinal database with detailed information on job and worker characteristics to tackle both issues. Our estimates confirm the negative correlation predicted by the theory. |
| Keywords: | job flows; replacement; employment dynamics |
| JEL: | J63 J23 |
| Date: | 2009–07 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:16158&r=lam |