Submitted by Luciene Torres de Mello Pereira (lutmp@fgvmail.br) on 2017-06-11T04:16:24Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Tese_Luciene.pdf: 1961088 bytes, checksum: 1e99bd46d1a1ec6aa2c3b353a6c76a0f (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Maria Almeida (maria.socorro@fgv.br) on 2017-06-23T12:39:36Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 Tese_Luciene.pdf: 1961088 bytes, checksum: 1e99bd46d1a1ec6aa2c3b353a6c76a0f (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-06-23T12:40:06Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Tese_Luciene.pdf: 1961088 bytes, checksum: 1e99bd46d1a1ec6aa2c3b353a6c76a0f (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-12-20 / This thesis contains three chapters. The first chapter studies the emergence of slums as a common feature in a country's path towards urbanization, structural transformation and development. Based on salient micro and macro evidence of Brazilian labor, housing and education markets, we construct a simple model to examine the conditions for slums to emerge. We then use the model to examine whether slums are barriers or stepping stones for lower skilled households and for the development of the country as a whole. We calibrate our model to explore the dynamic interaction between skill formation, income inequality and structural transformation with the rise (and potential fall) of slums in Brazil. We then conduct policy counterfactuals. For instance, we find that cracking down on slums could slow down the acquisition of human capital, the growth of cities (outside slums) and non-agricultural employment. The impact of reducing housing barriers to entry into cities is also explored. The second chapter studies the impact of education and fertility in structural transformation and growth. In the model there are three sectors, agriculture, manufacturing and services. Parents choose optimally the number of children and their skill. Educational policy has two dimensions, it may or may not allow child labor and it subsidizes education expenditures. The model is calibrated to South Korea and Brazil, and is able to reproduce some key stylized facts observed between 1960 and 2005 in these economies, such as the low (high) productivity of services in Brazil (South Korea) which is shown to be a function of human capital and very important in explaining its stagnation (growth) after 1980. We also analyze how different government policies towards education and child labor implemented in these countries affected individuals' decisions toward education and the growth trajectory of each economy. The third chapter investigates how the positive assortative mating in the marriage market contributes to income inequality across households in Brazil. To adress this question, we analyze samples of hundreds of thousands of households from the Brazilian Census Bureau for the period 1970 to 2010. The positive assortative mating in a first moment does not affect negatively income inequality. However, from some counterfactual exercises, we show that the improvement in income distribution during this period could have been even better if the trend in the marriage market had not ocurred. / Esta tese contém três capítulos. O primeiro aborda o surgimento e o desenvolvimento de favelas como uma característica comum à trajetória das economias em direção ao desenvolvimento e à urbanização. Com base em evidências micro e macroeconômicas do mercado de trabalho, de habitação e de educação no Brasil, nós construímos um modelo simples para examinar as condições para a emergência de favelas. E então, o usamos para avaliar se as favelas são barreiras ou etapas intermediárias ao desenvolvimento econômico. Nós calibramos o modelo com o objetivo de explorar a interação dinâmica entre a formação de habilidades, a desigualdade de renda e a transformação estrutural, tendo como pano de fundo o surgimento e o desenvolvimento de favelas no Brasil. Com isso, desenvolvemos políticas contrafactuais. Primeiro, mostramos que a proibição de formação de favelas poderia retardar o processo de transformação estrutural, a aquisição de capital humano pelos indivíduos e o crescimento das cidades. O efeito de uma redução nas barreiras de entrada ao mercado de habitação nas cidades também é explorado. O segundo capítulo estuda o impacto de educação e fertilidade no processo de transformação estrutural e crescimento. No modelo, há três setores: agricultura, manufatura e serviços. Os indivíduos escolhem otimamente o número de filhos e a habilidade deles. A política educacional apresenta duas dimensões: a proibição ou não de trabalho infantil na economia e o subsídio aos gastos com educação. O modelo é calibrado para a Coreia do Sul e o Brasil e ele é capaz de reproduzir alguns fatos estilizados centrais observados entre 1960 e 2005, tais como: a baixa (alta) produtividade do setor de serviços no Brasil (na Coreia do Sul), que é função do capital humano e que explica a estagnação (crescimento) após os anos 1980. Nós também analisamos como diferentes políticas governamentais no âmbito de educação e trabalho infantil afetam a decisão dos indivíduos de acumulação de capital e a trajetória de crescimento de cada economia. O terceiro capítulo investiga a evolução do mercado de casamento e o seu impacto na distribuição de renda no Brasil. A partir da análise de dados dos censos demográficos de 1970 a 2010, encontramos evidências de que as pessoas estão cada vez mais se casando com parceiros de características semelhantes, ao longo dos anos. O aumento do número de casamentos seletivos, a princípio, não é capaz de afetar negativamente a desigualdade de renda. No entanto, quando realizamos alguns exercícios conrafactuais, é possível perceber que a melhora na distribuição de renda, ocorrida nesse período, poderia ter sido ainda maior caso essa tendência no mercado de casamento não tivesse ocorrido.

<p>  </p> <p>My dissertation is composed of three independent chapters in the field of labor economics and international trade. </p> <p><br></p> <p>The first chapter studies marriage market signaling and women’s occupation choice. Despite the general closure of gender disparities in the labor market over the past half century, occupational segregation has been stubbornly persistent. I develop a new model that explains these occupational outcomes through marriage market signaling. Vertically differentiated men have preference over women’s unobservable caregiving ability. Heterogenous women choose caregiving occupations to signal their ability to be caregivers. My model generates unique predictions on the influence of marriage market conditions on women’s occupational choices. I find empirical support for these predictions using longitudinal data on marriage rates, policy shocks to divorce laws, and shocks to the marriage market sex ratio driven by waves of immigration. </p> <p><br></p> <p>The second chapter investigates Covid19 and consumer animus towards Chinese products. Covid19 has tremendously affected all areas of our lives and our online shopping behaviors have not been immune. China is the first country to report cases of Covid19 and suffers from rising animus in the U.S. In this paper, we study consumer animus towards Chinese products post Covid19 using Amazon data. We tracked all face masks sold on Amazon between Sep. 2019 to Sep. 2020, and collect product information that is available to a real consumer, including reviews. By analyzing both seller-generated (e.g., product name, description, features) and user-generated (e.g., reviews and customer Q&A) content, we collect information on the country-of-origin as well as consumer animus for the products. Under a fully-dynamic event study design, we find that the average rating drops significantly after a product is identified as made in China for the first time, while no such drop is found for products with other countries-of-origin. This negative impact is U-shaped, which quickly expands in the first five weeks, and then gradually fades out within six months. An informative-animus review affects the average rating of a Chinese product both directly (through its own rating) and indirectly (through other future ratings), with both mechanisms supported in data. We also provide strong evidence that the drop in average rating is driven by consumer animus instead of product quality. </p> <p><br></p> <p>The third chapter explores how cultural transmission through international trade affects gender discrimination. In this paper, I propose that international trade helps alleviate gender discrimination. With imperfect information on workers’ ability, there is statistical discrimination towards female workers. Through international trade, culture transmits asymmetrically between firms located in countries with different gender cultures. This cultural transmission benefits women because it transmits only in one direction from more gender-equal cultures to less gender-equal cultures. I prove this by linking the Customs data to the Industrial Firms data of China in 2004, and find that Chinese firms trading with more gender-equal cultures hire a higher fraction of female workers and enjoy higher profits. Similar patterns are not found in Chinese firms trading with less gender-equal cultures. The impact of cultural transmission goes beyond the firms engaged in international trade to have spillover effects onto purely domestic firms. Comparing across skill groups, cultural transmission benefits high-skill female workers more.</p>

My thesis explores why beauty became so much more important in nineteenth-century Britain, especially for marriageable young women in the upper and middle class. My argument addresses the consequences of that change in the status of beauty for plain or ugly women, how this social shift is reflected in the novel, and how authors respond to the issue of plainer women and issues of their marriageability. I look at how these authorial attitudes shifted over the century, observing that the issue of plain women and their marriageability was dramatized by nineteenth-century authors, whose efforts to heighten the audience's awareness of the plight of plainer women can be traced by contrasting novels written early in the century with novels written mid-century. I argue that beauty gained more significance for young women in nineteenth-century England because the marriage ideal shifted, a shift which especially influenced the upper and middle class. The eighteenth century brought into marriage concepts such as Rousseau's "wife-farm principle" the idea that a man chooses a significantly younger child-bride, mentoring and molding her into the woman he needs. But by the end of the century the ideal of marriage moved to the companionate ideal, which opted for an equal partnership. That ideal was based on the conception that marriage was based on personal happiness hence should be founded on compatibility and love. The companionate ideal became more influential as individuality reigned among the Romantics. The new ideal of companionate marriage limited parents' influence on their children's choice of spouse to the extent that the choice lay now largely with young men. Yet that choice was constrained because young men and women were restricted by social conventions, their social interaction limited. Thus, according to my reading of nineteenth-century authors, the companionate ideal was a charade, as young men were not able to get to know women well enough to determine whether or not they were compatible. So instead of getting to know a young woman's character and her personality, they distinguished potential brides mainly on the basis of appearance.