Research on the labor impact of privatization usually equates the process to other types of restructuring processes, such as downsizing, mergers or acquisitions. It is argued that not unlike other restructuring processes, privatization is likely to generate organizational changes that may lead to major alterations in employment quality. Few studies, however, have investigated the labor effects of privatization and other restructuring processes in a comparative manner, especially in developing countries. The overall purpose of this dissertation is to contribute to the understanding of the labor consequences of privatization in developing countries. This objective is undertaken through an exploration of the association between privatization and other restructuring processes occurring within the Brazilian banking industry and changes in employment quality, i.e., fluctuations in wages, non-wage benefits and job security. The most basic premise guiding this study's comparative framework is that the process of privatization is likely to affect labor in unique ways, that is, generating employment quality changes unlike those occurring at other sectors undergoing alternative restructuring processes. / The sample consists of 476 respondents: employees (survivors) and ex-employees (retrenched) of public, privatized and private banks. Data were collected in 1998 by using a method of triangulation, i.e., surveys and in-depth semi-structured interviews. The principal results for this study confirm that changes in employment quality are more significant for workers associated with the privatized sector when compared to workers affiliated with other sectors of the Brazilian banking industry. Both quantitative and qualitative data for this study suggest that significant transformations in employment quality occurred as a result of privatization. It is further argued that the decline in employment quality after privatization can be conversely understood as a negative commitment on the part of Brazilian employers. This lack of commitment can be ultimately associated with a new developmental model with a particular type of economic orientation and specific form of labor organization based on flexibility.

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This research examines the effects of democratization and political performance on the functional distribution of income in Argentina and Brazil from the end of their authoritarian periods to the present. The existing literature tends to focus on the impacts of democratization and political performance on the economic growth of the country as a whole or on changes to per capita income. This analysis focuses on the equality of economic development in less developed countries because growth is not necessarily distributed equally and poverty and inequality are both endemic to many less developed countries and also negatively impact development as a whole as well as the consolidation of democracy. To examine the effects of democratization and political performance on the shape of economic development, this thesis utilizes the Polity IV index as a measure of democracy, Relative Political Extraction as a proxy for political performance, and labor's share of national income as a measure of income inequality. Theoretically, a more democratic regime should enact policies that allow for a more equitable distribution of income because democratization increases popular representation and makes the provision of public goods preferable to the provision of private goods. Similarly, a regime with higher political capacity should be better equipped to enact whatever policies and development strategies it chooses, thereby reducing income inequality if the regime deems equitable development a priority. The main finding of this research is that political performance has had a significant impact on the shape of economic development in Argentina and Brazil, whereas the effect of democratization on the shape of development is less clear. A stronger, more effectively performing government will be better able to deliver equitable development regardless of its level of democracy than will a poorly performing government of any type.

This thesis attempts to analyze the market response of stock prices of major U.S. banks to the February, 1987 Brazilian loan default announcement. The study's general hypothesis is that the market revalued stock prices according to each bank's amount of Brazilian loan exposure. The first chapter examines the significance of the default announcement. A survey of related literature is presented in the second chapter. Chapter III specifies the methodological techniques involved in analysis of the data. Chapter IV reports the findings of the study. Conclusions about the results are drawn in Chapter V. The results indicate the market is efficient. They also suggest that individual exposure was the major determinant of bank stock price decline.

In this analysis, I estimate the impact of the changing relative size of the adult male population, classified by age and education groups, on the earnings of employed males living in 502 Brazilian local labor markets during four time periods between 1970 and 2000. The effects of shifts in the age distribution of the working age population have been studied in relation to the effect of the baby-boom generation on the earnings of different cohorts in the United States. However, the question has received little attention in the context of the countries in Asia and Latin America, which are now experiencing substantial shifts in their age-education distributions. Taking advantage of the huge variation across Brazilian local labor markets, the models in this research suggest that age-education groups are not perfect substitutes, so that own-cohort-education size depresses earnings, as expected by the theory. Compositional shifts are influential, attesting that this approach represents a fruitful way of studying this central problem in economic development, going beyond the effects normally analyzed by formal labor market equations. / text