This paper analyses the economic recovery in post-Convertibility Argentina. We try to identify if there are evidences to support the suggestion that Argentina could be an example of the so-called “new developmentalism”.

JEL Classification: P41; O54.

A consensus has not yet emerged about the relationship between budget deficit, external deficit and national saving. According to mainstream economic literature the budget deficit can cause an insufficiency of national saving for a given investment rate. In this case, the investment rate will not be reduced if foreign saving is absorbed, causing an external deficit. In general, the mechanisms through which budget deficits could cause current account deficits are not highlighted in the works about this theme. We arrive at the conclusion that there is not a systematic relationship between budget deficit, current account deficit and national saving and that when it happens it can be processed only through changes in the real exchange rate.

JEL Classification : E21; E22; E62; F30; F41.

Brazilian fiscal reform got to deadlocks because proposals tried to avoid considering federal relations. There are two main types of federal relations: the competitive and the cooperative. In both types is possible to observe coordination mechanisms. Brazilian federalism is a mixture of both types what leads to difficulties finding solutions. We argue that is more important to find mechanisms to facilitate cooperation than to discuss the qualities of any alternative fiscal structure. Fiscal reforms brings along a great deal of uncertainty. So it is important to discuss the reform timing and the compensation mechanisms before hand.

JEL Classification: H70.

One of the merits of contemporary economic analysis is its capacity to offer accounts of choice behavior that dispense with details of the complex decision machinery. The starting point of this paper is the concern with the important methodological debate about whether economics might offer accurate predictions and explanations of actual behavior without any reference to psychological presuppositions. Inspired by an exercise of rational reconstruction of ideas, I aim to offer an interpretation of the process of freeing economic analysis from psychology at the end of the 19th century and the contemporary resurrection of behavioral approaches in the late 1980s.

JEL Classification: B10; B20; B40.

 It is discussed the recent Irish experience of sustained economic growth, in which a social pact, the entry in the European Union and the opening of the economy have all played a paramount role. Some remarks on the sustainability of such an experience are also made.

JEL Classification: E65; F43; O52.

Nicholas Kaldor is known as an author who often changed his mind throughout his career. This is the case of his analyses of the process of economic growth, in which he proposed various models leading to quite different and, occasionally, conflicting conclusions. Specifically, Kaldor changed his position concerning the stability of the full employment situation. This paper shows that, in spite of those changes, Kaldor in fact used different versions of the same basic analytical framework and that this framework has its origin in his paper “Stability and Full Employment” published in the Economic Journal in December 1938.

JEL Classification: B31.

This paper investigates the relationship between the impact of Bolsa Família Program in the Brazilian population and the result of the presidential elections of 2006. The database involves municipal information provided by MDS, IBGE and TSE. To control the experiment, the eventual influences of other variables in the determination of this relationship had been studied. All those variables come from specific characteristics of the cities, such as: city with predominant urban or not urban population; size of the city population; among others. The results state that the Bolsa Família was, in fact, a very important factor in the determination of the votes in Lula. It was, in itself, responsible for 45% of the total votes in Lula.

JEL Classification: I38; H53.

In developing countries there is a tendency to the overvaluation of the exchange rate. It has two structural causes: the Dutch disease and the attraction that higher profit and interest rates usually prevailing in developing countries exert on foreign capitals, and four policy causes: the growth with foreign savings policy, the control of inflation to exchange rate anchors, the ‘capital deepening’ policy, and exchange rate populism. Either the country neutralizes this tendency and grows fast, or does not and will suffer cyclical balance of payment crises.