Brazilian fiscal federalism are heavily marked by the regional inequalities and the strong municipalist tradition of the country. These aspects were dominant for building the model finally adopted by the 1988 Constitution, which aggravated the vertical and horizontal unbalances in the distribution of fiscal resources, bringing new claim for further reforms. This paper addresses the difficulties faced since then for pushing proposals for redressing the above mentioned unbalances and point out the challenges to be met in order to bring the fiscal decentralization process in line with the ultimate goals of efficiency and accountability in the use of public resources.

Palavras-chave: Federalismo fiscal; relações intergovernamentais; arrecadação tributaria.

The aim of this paper is to examine the compatibility of Keynes' monetary production theory with the "horizontalist" approach to the determination of the interest rates and the money supply. According to Moore the short-term interest rates are exogenously determined by central banks, so that the portfolio approach to its determination, based on the liquidity preference theory, is incorrect. Keynes' theory, on the other hand, emphasizes the nature of money as an asset, whose interest rate, endogenously determined by liquidity preference, will set the limit to the marginal efficiency of other assets. This essay suggests that the "horizontalist" approach is not compatible with Keynes's view on "money as a 'real' factor".

Money supply; interest rate determination; post-keynesianism; endogenous money

This paper suggests that antidumping clauses in the World Trade Organization could have a positive impact in the growth of Third World countries. The labor cost increases caused would pressure for faster technical change, accelerating growth. The possible short-term unbalances in the current accounts would be temporary and would vanish in the long-term. It is also argued that the political alliances to introduce such clauses in an international organization could be an important change in the world political scene, bringing hope of forthcoming prevailing international relations that could be more positive for third world growth.

This paper analyzes the new experiences of industrial relations and its implications on the wages, the work time, the work qualification and the labor market segmentation in industrialized countries. The paper is organized in three basic items. In the first, we present the state of art concerning the theoretical discussion on the new experiences of industrial relations. The main objecve is to present the proposals on the cooperative relationship. In the second, we analyse the evolution of industrial relations and labor market regulation in Sweden, Italy and France in the 80's. Finally, we discuss the influence of the dynamics of new industrial relations on the work conditions and labor market.

Using an input-output framework, this article studies the consequences of income redistribution from rich people either to poor people or to the government upon the sectoral structure of the Brazilian economy in the 70’s. Besides the traditional use of elements of sectoral analysis, the main concept used to achieve this goal is that of “subeconomies”, focusing on industries (and associated patterns of employment and value added) which produce the components of particular expenditure bundles. Thus, a subeconomy is composed by the economic activity derived from determined expenditure groups, such as poor consumer households, government, etc. Two main results emerge from the empirical application of these concepts. First, agriculture is the most important sector in the generation of employment in response to transfers of income from rich to poor households. Second, the urbanization which accompanied growth during the 70’s favours a redistributive strategy in which the role of government becomes outstanding in terms of generation of both value added and employment.

This paper analyzes the married women labor force participation across income strata. Both empirical and theoretical evidences indicate that this participation is higher the lower the husband’s income, which may suggest that women participation in the labor market is greater among the poor. Our results show, however, that just the opposite relationship emerges when one considers a more appropriate income concept for poverty matters: household per capita income, that accounts for women’s earnings. Therefore, policies aimed at eliminating barriers to their access to the labor market, coupled with the provision of adequate substitutes for child rearing activities, should contribute to ameliorate poverty.

This paper analyzes Japanese investments in Latin America, especially in Chile, Mexico, Argentina, Venezuela and Brazil. In addition, it discusses the possible impacts that the free trade agreements being implemented in the region would have on these investments.

Latin America has entered a new phase of abundance of capital inflows, bearing some resemblance to the episode of 70s. In this paper a review is made of the origins of indebtedment in the 70s, of the emergence of the crisis in the early 80s, and of the management by creditors and debtors during that decade. Some lessons are derived about the working of international financial markets and policy implications.

Ugo Pipitone's book La Salida del Atraso: Un Estudio Histórico Comparativo is reviewed. His main idea concerning the existence of only two preconditions for modernization, namely the presence of a reasonably efficient government which should be freee from corruption and a developed agriculture, is subject to criticism. It is pointed out that other factors such as the stage of cultural and educational development attained by the society in question as well as the income level, the presence of markets for manufactured goods and the existence of an adequate infrastructurem are equally important. It is pointed out that the author´s idea that tipically the modernization process lasts at most two generations (about 50 years), is correct for England and some late starter as Germany and the US, but that this did not hold either for Italy or Japan.