Existem diferentes possibilidades para o crescimento das empresas brasileiras, com destaque para a atuação em mercados populares internacionais. Por um lado, existem empresas brasileiras com habilidades, capacidade de gestão e preparadas para atuar nestes mercados e por outro lado existem enormes mercados populares não atendidos plenamente pelas empresas locais ou multinacionais de países desenvolvidos. Neste âmbito configura-se a tese, visando a responder quais são as dimensões estratégicas críticas para a atuação nos mercados populares internacionais e como os conhecimentos adquiridos no mercado brasileiro impactam a atuação das empresas, com o objetivo central de propor um modelo de internacionalização para empresas brasileiras competirem com sucesso nos mercados populares internacionais. O Brasil tem um histórico de baixa participação nos negócios internacionais, embora este número venha crescendo e foi idenitificado um excelente potencial nos mercados populares internacionais, em especial Argentina, China, Colômbia, México, Índia, Chile, Rússia, Peru, Paraguai, Venezuela, Uruguai, África do Sul, Turquia, Irã, Polônia, Argélia, Arábia Saudita, Indonésia, Tailândia e Bolívia. A partir das análises conceituais das estratégias para mercados de bens populares...

This paper investigates the role of services in the household response to trade reforms in Vietnam. The relative response of the households and income growth after a major trade liberalization in rice are analyzed aiming to answer the following questions: What type of households, in which locations, having access to what type of services, benefited more from the reforms? It focuses on services that have an impact on transaction costs (roads or quality of roads, public transportation, access to credit, extension services, and availability of markets in communication services) because transaction costs are often cited as a barrier to rural households in responding to the price changes and increased incentives offered by trade and other policy reforms. The results suggest that availability of production related services contributes positively to the impact of trade reforms. Although most of the service variables have a positive and significant effect on growth in income, some that are expected to have an impact are not significant. This may be explained by the exceptional coverage of infrastructure services in Vietnam even before the reforms. When service availability is very similar across different localities...

Poverty reduction has become a fundamental objective of development, and therefore a metric for assessing the effectiveness of various interventions. Economic growth can be a powerful instrument of income poverty reduction. This creates a need for meaningful ways of assessing the poverty impact of growth. This paper follows the elasticity approach to propose a measure of pro-poorness defined as a weighted average of the deviation of a growth pattern from the benchmark case. The measure can help assess pro-poorness both in terms of aggregate poverty measures, which are members of the additively separable class, and at percentiles. It also lends itself to a decomposition procedure, whereby the overall pattern of income growth can be unbundled, and the contributions of income components to overall pro-poorness identified. An application to data for Indonesia in the 1990s reveals that the amount of poverty reduction achieved over that period remains far below what would have been achieved under distributional neutrality. This conclusion is robust to the choice of a poverty measure among members of the additively separable class, and can be tracked back to changes in expenditure components.

External shocks, such as commodity price fluctuations, natural disasters, and the role of the international economy, are often blamed for the poor economic performance of low-income countries. The author quantifies the impact of these different external shocks using a panel vector autoregression (VAR) approach and compares their relative contributions to output volatility in low-income countries vis-à-vis internal factors. He finds that external shocks can only explain a small fraction of the output variance of a typical low-income country. Internal factors are the main source of fluctuations. From a quantitative perspective, the output effect of external shocks is typically small in absolute terms, but significant relative to the historic performance of these countries.

The fact that raising taxes can increase taxed labor supply through income effects is frequently used to justify much lower measures of the marginal welfare cost of taxes and greater public good provision than indicated by traditional, compensated analyses. The authors confirm that this difference remains substantial with newer elasticity estimates, but show that either compensated or uncompensated measures of the marginal cost of funds can be used to evaluate the costs of taxation-and will provide the same result-as long as the income effects of both taxes and public good provision are incorporated in a consistent manner.

A recent paper argues persuasively that the two basic pillars of taxation in most countries are the income tax and the VAT (Barreix and Roca 2007). The authors argue that the VAT is excellent as a revenue raiser and works best if it is applied in the simplest and most neutral fashion possible that is, on as broad a base as possible and preferably at a uniform rate. Given the relative unimportance of personal income taxes in most developing countries this argument is at first sight perhaps somewhat surprising. Personal income tax (PIT) revenues are often three to four times corporate tax revenues in developed countries, but in developing countries corporate tax revenues usually substantially exceed PIT revenues. As a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP), PIT revenues in developed countries average about seven percent of GDP as compared to about two percent for developing countries. Moreover, as Bird and Zolt (2005) note, in many developing countries personal income taxes often amount to little more than taxes on labor income. At the same time...

Cigarette consumption has been increasing in Indonesia, as in many other developing countries, causing a rising burden of disease and premature death. Higher excise taxes have proved effective in many countries in reducing cigarette consumption and raising government revenues. This study examines the effect of higher prices/taxes on the decision to smoke, the quantity of cigarettes consumed by smokers in different income groups in Indonesia, and government revenues. It uses 1999 Social and Economic Survey (SUSENAS) household data, with households as the unit of analysis. There was at least one smoker in 57 percent of all households. Most households smoked kretek cigarettes with filters (64 percent), or without filters (31 percent). Average household monthly cigarette consumption was 18 packs of 16 cigarettes. Per capita cigarette consumption was higher for higher income households: 7.83 packs per month, compared to 4 packs for low-income households. On average, households spent 6.22 percent of their total income on cigarettes and kreteks...

This paper assembles data at the all-India level and for the village of Palanpur, Uttar Pradesh, to document the growing importance, and influence, of the non-farm sector in the rural economy between the early 1980s and late 2000s. The suggestion from the combined National Sample Survey and Palanpur data is of a slow process of non-farm diversification, whose distributional incidence, on the margin, is increasingly pro-poor. The village-level analysis documents that the non-farm sector is not only increasing incomes and reducing poverty, but appears as well to be breaking down long-standing barriers to mobility among the poorest segments of rural society. Efforts by the government of India to accelerate the process of diversification could thus yield significant returns in terms of declining poverty and increased income mobility. The evidence from Palanpur also shows, however, that at the village-level a significant increase in income inequality has accompanied diversification away from the farm. A growing literature argues that such a rise in inequality could affect the fabric of village society...

The paper develops a concept and a measure of the monetary capacity of a country to reduce its own poverty and shows how these tools can be used to guide budget allocations or the allocation of aid. The authors call this concept the income lever. Making use of tax and distributive theory, the paper shows how different redistributive criteria correspond to the different normative criteria of the income lever. It then constructs various income lever indexes based on these criteria and uses such indexes to rank countries according to their own capacity to reduce poverty. As shown in the empirical application, this methodology can provide an equitable tool to rank countries or regions when it comes to budget or aid allocations, whether it is the allocation of social funds within the European Union (North-North transfers) or the allocation of aid from rich to poor countries (North-South transfers). The findings indicate that the allocation of social funds in the European Union follows closely the rank that results from the income lever indexes proposed while the allocation of aid to Sub-Saharan African countries does not.

Poor rural and urban households in developing countries face substantial risks, which they handle with risk-management and risk-coping strategies, including self-insurance through savings and informal insurance mechanisms. Despite these mechanisms, however, vulnerability to poverty linked to risk remains high. This article reviews the literature on poor households use of risk-management and risk-coping strategies. It identifies the constraints on their effectiveness and discusses policy options. It shows that risk and lumpiness limit the opportunities to use assets as insurance, that entry constraints limit the usefulness of income diversification, and that informal risk-sharing provides only limited protection, leaving some of the poor exposed to very severe negative shocks. Public safety nets are likely to be beneficial, but their impact is sometimes limited, and they may have negative externalities on households that are not covered. Collecting more information on households vulnerability to poverty through both quantitative and qualitative methods can help inform policy.

Although theoretical models make distinct predictions about the relationship between financial sector development and income inequality, little empirical research has been conducted to compare their relative explanatory power. The authors examine the relation between financial intermediary development and income inequality in a panel data set of 91 countries for the period 1960-95. Their results provide evidence that inequality decreases as economies develop their financial intermediaries, consistent with the theoretical models in Galor and Zeira (1993) and Banerjee and Newman (1993). Moreover, consistent with the insight of Kuznets, the relation between the Gini coefficient and financial intermediary development appears to depend on the sectoral structure of the economy: a larger modern sector is associated with a smaller drop in the Gini coefficient for the same level of financial intermediary development. But there is no evidence of an inverted-U-shaped relation between financial sector development and income inequality...

Theoretical work has shown that nonlinear dynamics in household incomes can yield poverty traps and distribution-dependent growth. If this is true, the potential implications for policy are dramatic: effective social protection from transient poverty would be an investment with lasting benefits, and pro-poor redistribution would promote aggregate economic growth. The authors test for nonlinearity in the dynamics of household incomes and expenditures using panel data for 6,000 households over six years in rural southwest China. While they find evidence of nonlinearity in the income and expenditure dynamics, there is no sign of a dynamic poverty trap. The authors argue that existing private and social arrangements in this setting protect vulnerable households from the risk of destitution. However, their findings imply that the speed of recovery from an income shock is appreciably slower for the poor than for others. They also find that current inequality reduces future growth in mean incomes, though the "growth cost" of inequality appears to be small. The maximum contribution of inequality is estimated to be 4-7 percent of mean income and 2 percent of mean consumption.

Since we introduced the term “middle-income trap” in 2006, it has become popular among policy makers and researchers. In May 2015, a search of Google Scholar returned more than 3,000 articles including the term and about 300 articles with the term in the title. This paper provides a (non-exhaustive) survey of this literature. The paper then discusses what, in retrospect, we missed when we coined the term. Today, based on developments in East Asia, Latin America, and Central Europe during the past decade, we would have paid more attention to demographic factors, entrepreneurship, and external institutional anchors. We would also make it clearer that to us, the term was as much the absence of a satisfactory theory that could inform development policy in middle-income economies as the articulation of a development phenomenon. Three-quarters of the people in the world now live in middle-income economies, but economists have yet to provide a reliable theory of growth to help policy makers navigate the transition from middle- to high-income status. Hybrids of the Solow-Swan and Lucas-Romer models are not unhelpful...

This paper proposes that individuals care about the relative income of proximate reference groups. Making use of self-reported life satisfaction as a proxy for unobservable utility, the relative income of siblings is tested for relevance as a reference point for new sample data from Venezuela. Having greater perceived income than one's siblings is found to be positively linked to individual life satisfaction. This evidence supplements the scarce economic research on reference groups, supporting the hypothesis that individuals with proximate characteristics and resembling opportunities in life serve as points of comparison.

Malaysia's structural transformation from low to middle income is a success story, making it one of the most prominent manufacturing exporters in the world. However, like many other middle income economies, it is squeezed by the competition from low-wage economies on the one hand, and more innovative advanced economies on the other. What can Malaysia do? Does Malaysia need a new growth strategy? This paper emphasizes the need for broad structural transformation; that is, moving to higher productivity production in both goods and services. This paper examines productivity growth for Malaysia at the sectoral level, and constructs several measures of the sophistication of goods and services trade, and puts these comparisons in a global context. The results indicate that Malaysia has further opportunities for growth in the services sector in particular. Modernizing the services sector may provide a way out of the middle income trap, and serve as a source of growth for Malaysia into the future.

This paper addresses three areas of the rural labor market-employment, labor wages, and agriculture producer incomes. Findings show that the poor allocate a lower share of their labor to farm sectors than the nonpoor do, but still around 70 percent work in agriculture, and the vast majority of rural workers are engaged in the informal sector. When examining nonfarm employment in rural Argentina, findings suggest that key determinants of access to employment and productivity in nonfarm activities are education, skills, land access, location, and gender. Employment analyses show that women have higher probability than men to participate in rural nonfarm activities and they are not confined to low-return employment. Moreover, workers living in poorer regions with land access are less likely to be employed in the nonfarm sector. There is strong evidence that educated people have better prospects in both the farm and nonfarm sectors, and that education is an important determinant of employment in the better-paid nonfarm activities. Labor wage analyses reveal that labor markets pay lower returns to poorer than to richer women and returns to education are increasing with increased level of completed education and income level. And nonfarm income and employment are highly correlated with gender...

This report provides a strategic overview of Mexico's federal social protection system, comprised of both social insurance and social assistance programs. It assesses its performance to date regarding income risk management for vulnerable groups, and identifies options for stepping up that performance. In doing so it responds to an increasing consensus in Mexico regarding the need for a major social protection policy reform, even if the direction of those reforms is still in flux. The report is designed to provide a first stage diagnostic of major issues facing the social protection system, as an input to ongoing discussion and debate in Mexico, and as a platform for further technical work on the specifics of reform. The report focuses on the role of federal government in the design and implementation of social protection policies, while recognizing that sub-national governments are playing an important role in the provision of these services. In doing so, it draws upon the first phase of the Mexico Programmatic Poverty Work, as well as the urban, rural and vulnerability studies conducted in parallel with this analysis. The report is organized into four chapters. Chapter 1 presents a brief review of social protection concepts, and establishes a framework for determining the optimal role for government in the provision of social protection (risk management) tools...

Uruguay's Government is currently analyzing several reform strategies for the social sectors. These include a health reform, the introduction of a new poverty alleviation program, possible changes in pensions and unemployment insurance, and also a tax reform, that impacts the income transfer policies in several aspects. The purpose of this report is to contribute to the debate around the design of the income transfer policies for the medium and long term. The report is divided in five sections. Section two presents the conceptual discussion; section three describes the current policies, including an assessment of coverage, impacts, and fiscal effects. The fourth section presents a simulation to assess the potential impacts of the new Plan de Equidad, and the fifth section discusses conclusions and the central challenges for the future.

The relationship between income inequality and crime has attracted the interest of many researchers, but little convincing evidence exists on the causal effect of inequality on crime in developing countries. This paper estimates this effect in a unique context: Mexico's Drug War. The analysis takes advantage of a unique data set containing inequality and crime statistics for more than 2,000 Mexican municipalities covering a period of 20 years. Using an instrumental variable for inequality that tackles problems of reverse causality and omitted variable bias, this paper finds that an increment of one point in the Gini coefficient translates into an increase of more than 10 drug-related homicides per 100,000 inhabitants between 2006 and 2010. There are no significant effects before 2005. The fact that the effect was found during Mexico's Drug War and not before is likely because the cost of crime decreased with the proliferation of gangs (facilitating access to knowledge and logistics, lowering the marginal cost of criminal behavior)...

POLICY QUESTION “What is the relationship between inequality and economic growth? Specifically, does income inequality hamper or foster economic growth in developing countries?” BACKGROUND As the global economy experienced rapid economic growth after World War II, an intense debate arose as to whether such growth benefited poor people and reduced income inequality or vice versa. In the 1950s, Kuznets explained that there is a trade-off between income inequality and economic growth. He proposed that income inequality initially rises but then declines as per capita income increases. If this hypothesis is true, the income inequality that developing nations are experiencing is not something that they should be concerned about, as it would eventually decline over the course of their economic growth. Many scholars have attempted to confirm as well as rebut this relationship; however, it remains ambiguous. In contrast, studies of this relationship for sub-Saharan African countries have not been conducted thoroughly. African regions were struggling with extreme poverty and, as a result, dealing with poverty issues was the main concern of the governments and researchers. And sub-Saharan Africa countries had desperate health issues to deal with...