In this article, we combine two so far separate strands of the economic literature and argue that democratization leads to a real exchange rate appreciation. We test this hypothesis empirically for a sample of countries observed from 1980 to 2007 by combining a difference-in-difference approach with propensity score matching estimators. Our empirical results reveal a strong and significant finding: democratization causes real exchange rates to appreciate. Consequently, the ongoing process of democratization observed in many parts of the world is likely to reduce exchange rate distortions.

Exhaustible resource rents are an important taxable base in many countries, with revenue sharing often part of the scheme. In some cases large shares are retained for the central government. Generally, the discussions of exhaustible resource taxation consider assignment of resource rent tax base and revenue sharing from the limited perspectives of efficiency and stability. Tax assignment and sharing arrangements are assumed to have a neutral effect on investment of resource rents in long-lived public goods. We attempt to demonstrate that this may not be the case, specifically looking at the question of whether rent assignment is neutral to effects on investment of rents in long-lived public goods, a normative policy objective, and under what conditions it occurs. We test the theoretical propositions with data from the Russian Federation to derive empirical results. The results from the Russian Federation point toward an important dimension of rent tax assignment in a federation. They results show that ceteris paribus, higher share of rent for the federation may lead to lower investment in long-lived public goods and may be constrained by stability. Another argument has been made for reconsidering rent tax assignment using assertive ethnic identity as a manifestation strong ownership claims. Communities with strongly valued identities value ownership over land and exhaustible resource endowments in their areas. This may be the case especially if ethnic identity is important to the resource owning community. The empirical results show that a decrease in the regional share of rent resulted in a fall in investments in the republics and regions with strong ethnic identity. Republics among the producing regions have historical claims to a distinct identity and may have a preference for preserving their identity. This preference is manifested as higher levels of rent investment. Following this line of argument, it can be concluded that rent assignment, through rent tax or revenue assignment, should favor producing regions within the range of stability in a federation, if the objective is achieving higher investment in long-lived public goods.

Exhaustible resource rents are an important taxable base in many countries, with revenue sharing often part of the scheme. In some cases large shares are retained for the central government. Generally, the discussions of exhaustible resource taxation consider assignment of resource rent tax base and revenue sharing from the limited perspectives of efficiency and stability. Tax assignment and sharing arrangements are assumed to have a neutral effect on investment of resource rents in long-lived public goods. We attempt to demonstrate that this may not be the case, specifically looking at the question of whether rent assignment is neutral to effects on investment of rents in long-lived public goods, a normative policy objective, and under what conditions it occurs. We test the theoretical propositions with data from the Russian Federation to derive empirical results. The results from the Russian Federation point toward an important dimension of rent tax assignment in a federation. They results show that ceteris paribus, higher share of rent for the federation may lead to lower investment in long-lived public goods and may be constrained by stability. Another argument has been made for reconsidering rent tax assignment using assertive ethnic identity as a manifestation strong ownership claims. Communities with strongly valued identities value ownership over land and exhaustible resource endowments in their areas. This may be the case especially if ethnic identity is important to the resource owning community. The empirical results show that a decrease in the regional share of rent resulted in a fall in investments in the republics and regions with strong ethnic identity. Republics among the producing regions have historical claims to a distinct identity and may have a preference for preserving their identity. This preference is manifested as higher levels of rent investment. Following this line of argument, it can be concluded that rent assignment, through rent tax or revenue assignment, should favor producing regions within the range of stability in a federation, if the objective is achieving higher investment in long-lived public goods.

This paper is dedicated to the empirical analysis of the pilot trainee project Stáže ve firmách, which is considered as treatment in this analysis. The main objective of the empirical analysis is estimation of average treatment effect(ATE) and average treatment effect on treated(ATET) for characteristics like socioeconomic status and wage. Counterfactual methods for policy impact evaluation like Difference in Differences Estimator(DiD), First Differences Estimator(FD) and Propensity Score Matching(PSM) are used to estimation mentioned effects. This paper contains extension of Assignment Problem that is used for people matching purposes as alternative for PSM. This way of matching provides better control over creation of couples. Resulting pairs are more similar in selected characteristics due to better control during couples creation process.

Submitted by Sarah Helena Moya (moya.sarah@gmail.com) on 2012-09-03T01:28:02Z No. of bitstreams: 1 20120831 Dissertação Sarah Moya.pdf: 438276 bytes, checksum: 4f3ffa26ca7e793e571d9243882c9a79 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Suzinei Teles Garcia Garcia (suzinei.garcia@fgv.br) on 2012-09-03T12:55:46Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 20120831 Dissertação Sarah Moya.pdf: 438276 bytes, checksum: 4f3ffa26ca7e793e571d9243882c9a79 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2012-09-03T13:07:25Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 20120831 Dissertação Sarah Moya.pdf: 438276 bytes, checksum: 4f3ffa26ca7e793e571d9243882c9a79 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2012-08-02 / This paper estimates the impact of hiring structured teaching methods on evolution and dispersion of performance of students in primary public schools of São Paulo State municipalities to evaluate whether the structured teaching methods, besides increasing the average performance of students in contracting municipalities, also provide homogenization of score of students in a higher level. To this end, we used data from 2005, 2007 and 2009 of Prova Brasil exam for Portuguese and Mathematics and the difference in differences estimation method with fixed effects for municipality. The results obtained showed that the structured teaching methods contribute to increase the average performance of municipalities, and that was not observed different benefit to students with higher or lower initial performance. About the effect of structured teaching methods in the standard deviation of scores, the results did not show sufficient robustness to allow us to affirm that the methods contribute to the homogenization of the performance. / Neste trabalho analisamos o efeito da contratação de sistemas de ensino para métodos estruturados sobre a evolução e dispersão do desempenho dos alunos das escolas públicas municipais do estado de São Paulo. O objetivo da análise é avaliar se os métodos estruturados de ensino, além de aumentar o desempenho médio dos alunos nos municípios contratantes, também servem com meio para homogeneizar a nota dos alunos em um nível mais elevado. Para este fim utilizamos os dados dos exames de português e matemática dos anos de 2005, 2007 e 2009 da Prova Brasil e, pelo método de estimação de diferenças em diferenças com, efeito fixo por município, avaliamos o incremento no desempenho médio e no desvio padrão do desempenho dos municípios devido à posse de contrato para método estruturado em relação àqueles que não o possuem. Os resultados obtidos revelaram que os métodos estruturados de ensino contribuem para o aumento do desempenho médio dos municípios, e que não foi observado benefício diferenciado a alunos com maior ou menor desempenho inicial. Sobre o efeito da contratação de sistemas de ensino sobre o desvio padrão do desempenho, os resultados não apresentaram robustez suficiente que nos permitissem afirmar que os métodos contribuem para a homogeneização do desempenho.