Ng, Shou Zhong. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 71-77). / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / ABSTRACT --- p.ii / ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS --- p.iv / LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS --- p.vii / LIST OF TABLES --- p.viii / Chapter 1 --- INTRODUCTION --- p.1 / Chapter 1.1 --- MOTIVATIONS / Chapter 1.2 --- OBJECTIVES / Chapter 2 --- LITERATURE REVIEW --- p.12 / Chapter 3 --- DATA DESCRIPTION --- p.22 / Chapter 4 --- METHODOLOGY --- p.25 / Chapter 4.1 --- Cross-Section Dispersion of Per Capita Real Income / Chapter 4.2 --- Stochastic Convergence of the 17 OECD Countries / Chapter 4.3 --- Time-Varying Parameters Model on Convergence / Chapter 4.4 --- Unobserved Components Structural Time Series Models on Converging Economy / Chapter 5 --- ESTIMATION RESULTS --- p.40 / Chapter 5.1 --- Cross-Section Dispersion of Per Capita Real Income / Chapter 5.2 --- Stochastic Convergence of the 17 OECD Countries / Chapter 5.3 --- Time-Varying Parameters Model on Convergence / Chapter 5.4 --- Unobserved Components Structural Time Series Models on Converging Economy / Chapter 6 --- CONCLUSIONS --- p.64 / APPENDICES --- p.67 / BIBLIOGRAPHY --- p.71 / ILLUSTRATIONS --- p.78 / TABLES --- p.87

Orientador: Rodolfo Hoffmann / Tese (doutorado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Economia / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-24T21:36:14Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Oliveira_RegisBorgesde_D.pdf: 3846657 bytes, checksum: 6669c57606c98d3daae27bdc6afbce44 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2014 / Resumo: Este trabalho analisa o impacto do salário mínimo sobre a distribuição dos rendimentos no setor agrícola brasileiro entre os anos de 1995 e 2012. Mais precisamente, estuda o efeito do salário mínimo na determinação do rendimento de diferentes categorias de trabalhadores agrícolas, quais sejam: empregados permanentes com ou sem carteira, empregados temporários com ou sem carteira e trabalhadores por conta-própria. Nos últimos 18 anos, o salário mínimo real apresentou crescimento sistemático com efeitos importantes sobre os rendimentos no mercado de trabalho. Paralelamente, observou-se, no Brasil, um movimento sem precedentes, que combinou o crescimento econômico com a redução da desigualdade, tanto quando se analisam os rendimentos do trabalho como o rendimento domiciliar per capita. Evidências empíricas mostraram que o SM foi um dos fatores que contribuiu para a redução da desigualdade, porém seu efeito é distinto quando são considerados as categorias de empregados agrícolas. Utilizando estatísticas descritivas e dois métodos não-paramétricos (densidades de kernel e regressões quantílicas) aplicados aos dados da PNAD/IBGE, o trabalho mostra que para os empregados sem carteira no setor agrícola o SM tem impacto concentrador, na medida em que afeta com mais intensidade os rendimentos localizados na parte superior da distribuição. Chama-se a atenção para a necessidade de aumento da formalização das relações de trabalho no setor, garantindo que os trabalhadores mais pobres sejam beneficiados pelos aumentos reais do salário mínimo / Abstract: This study aims to analyze the impact of the minimum wage on the wage distribution in the Brazilian¿s agricultural sector over the period 1992-2012. More precisely, we study the effect of the minimum wage policy in determining the wage of different categories of agricultural workers, as follows: permanents employees with or without register, temporaries employees with or without register and self-employed workers. Over the past 18 years the real value of the minimum wage has been increased systematically with important effects in the labor market. At the same time, the Brazilian economy has experienced an unprecedented tendency, which combined economic growth with reduced inequality when analyzing both the labor income and the per capita household income. Empirical evidences have showed that the minimum wage was one of the factors that contributed to the fall on inequality, but its effect is different when considering the agricultural employees' categories. Using descriptive statistics and two non-parametric methods (kernel density functions and quantile regressions) applied to the National Household Sample Survey (PNAD/IBGE) data, this work shows that for unregistered workers in the agricultural sector the real minimum wage growth has increased inequality, as far as it affects more intensely the upper tail of the wage distribution. We highlight the necessity of increasing the formalization among agricultural employees, ensuring that the poorest workers also be benefited by the real minimum wage increase / Doutorado / Desenvolvimento Economico, Espaço e Meio Ambiente / Doutor em Desenvolvimento Economico

This dissertation is part of a growing body of research studying the implications of micro heterogeneity - differences between different types of households and workers - for macro economic policy. By incorporating heterogeneity into monetary and fiscal policy frameworks, I am able to study both the distributional consequences of policy and uncover ways in which differences between households change policy transmission mechanisms. In the first chapter, I show that growing differences across the income distribution in workers' substitutability with capital alters the strength of a key monetary policy transmission mechanism. In the second chapter, I highlight and measure a new trade-off between redistribution policies and long-run investment stemming from differences in households' propensity to save out of permanent income. In the third chapter, joint with Jennifer La'O, we show that when the degree of labor income inequality changes over the business cycle, and fiscal policy is unable to respond to these changes, optimal monetary policy should take this inequality into account. Chapter 1 examines how heterogeneity in worker substitutability with capital affects the labor income channel of monetary policy. Empirically, I show that workers performing routine tasks see smaller labor income gains than other workers following a monetary expansion and have higher marginal propensities to consume (MPC). I show that this relationship dampens the role that the labor market plays in monetary policy transmission. I embed capital-task complementarity in a medium-scale HANK model calibrated to match the respective capital-labor elasticities and labor shares of routine and non-routine workers. This worker heterogeneity reduces the size of the labor income channel 25 percent. Chapter 2 studies the trade-offs associated with income redistribution in an overlapping generations model in which savings rates increase with permanent income. By transferring resources from high savers to low savers, redistribution lowers aggregate savings, and depresses investment. I derive sufficient conditions under which this savings behavior generates a welfare trade-off between permanent income redistribution and capital accumulation in the short and long run. I quantify the size of this trade-off in two ways. First, I derive a sufficient statistic formula for the impact of this channel on welfare, and estimate the formula using U.S. household panel data. When redistribution is done with a labor income tax, the welfare costs associated with my channel are around 1/3 the size of those associated with labor supply distortions. Second, I solve a quantitative overlapping generations model with un-insurable idiosyncratic earnings risk in which savings rates increase with permanent income calibrated to the U.S. in 2019. In this setting, I find that around 17 percent of the trade-off between labor income redistribution and average consumption can be attributed to my channel. In Chapter 3, joint with Jennifer La'O, we study optimalmonetary policy in a dynamic, general equilibrium economy with heterogeneous agents. All heterogeneity is ex-ante: workers differ in type-specific, state-contingent labor productivity, yet markets are complete. The fiscal authority has access to a uniform, state-contingent lump-sum tax (or transfer), but linear taxes are restricted to be non-state contingent. We derive sufficient conditions under which implementing flexible-price allocations is optimal. We show that such allocations are not optimal when the relative labor income distribution varies with the business cycle; in such cases, optimal monetary policy implements a state-contingent mark-up that co-moves positively with a sufficient statistic for labor income inequality.