A literatura empírica de ciclos políticos orçamentários pouco aborda a influência da limitação de mandato na existência do oportunismo fiscal por parte do ocupante do poder executivo nas finanças dos vários entes da federação. Nesse sentido, à luz da Nova Economia Política, o objetivo desta pesquisa foi investigar o impacto dos diferentes incentivos enfrentados no Brasil por prefeitos em primeiro mandato - aqueles que são elegíveis para a reeleição - e em segundo mandato - aqueles que não podem candidatar-se à reeleição - na gestão fiscal dos municípios. Para além da avaliação de todo o mandato eletivo, também foi analisado o impacto da diferenciação dos dois tipos de incumbentes na inscrição de valores em restos a pagar nos anos eleitorais. Os resultados obtidos via painel clássico sugerem uma efetiva diferenciação entre prefeitos em primeiro e segundo mandato em anos não eleitorais, com prefeitos em primeiro mandato inscrevendo maiores valores em restos a pagar processados e total em relação aos prefeitos de segundo mandato. Ademais, seguindo a legislação de responsabilidade fiscal brasileira, prefeitos em segundo mandato reduziram a inscrição de valores nessas rubricas em ano eleitoral, embora prefeitos em primeiro mandato tenham aumentado a inscrição de valores em restos a pagar não processados. / The empirical literature on political budget cycles has not studied all the influences of term limitations in the existence of fiscal opportunism by politicians in the various levels of government. In this sense, regarding the Political Economy, the objective of this research was to investigate the impact of different incentives faced by first-term mayors in Brazil - those who are eligible for re-election - and second-term mayors - those who cannot apply for re-election - in the fiscal management at the local level. Beyond the assessment of the entire mandate, it was also evaluated the impact of differentiation of the two types of incumbents in the management of the unpaid spending obligations in election years. Results obtained via classic panel suggest an effective differentiation between first and second-term mayors in non-election years, as first-term mayors exhibit higher unpaind recognized spending obligations and total unpaid spending obligations values in comparison to second-term mayors. Moreover, following the Brazilian fiscal responsability law, second-term mayors reduced values in these items in election year, although first-term mayors had higher values on average for unpaid and unrecognized spending obligations.

Europeans have been spending increasingly less on defense. This trend is puzzling on two accounts. Empirically, 30% of defense spending cuts correlated with a net increase in military capacity, contradicting conventional predictions of military degradation under budgetary pressures. Theoretically, it is unclear why cuts happen and whether conscious policy choices can translate spending cuts to favorable military capacity outcomes. Is the decline in defense spending a strategic choice to demilitarize, or is it intentionally managed to improve military capacity? I evaluate three conditions under which reductions in military expenditures can lead to favorable outcomes in military capacity: defense reform, defense collaboration and buck-passing. I investigate 30 defense spending cut periods (DSCP’s) in the 27 European states between 2000 and 2012. This group of states presents a hard case for my argument: decline in European military resources is most-likely intentional. Through Qualitative Comparative Analysis, I group DSCP’s by military capacity outcomes. I then evaluate presence of the three mechanisms by operationalizing necessary but insufficient conditions, and determine whether these potential explanations are sufficient by process-tracing select case studies. I find that defense reform presents the most compelling, collective collaboration less compelling and buck-passing least compelling explanation of a potentially non-detrimental relationship between DSCP’s and military capacity. Under declining defense spending, governments routinely chose to produce savings by eliminating redundancies, consolidating structures, and reinvested savings in operational readiness and quality of military forces. States increased defense collaboration in 47.3% of the DSCP’s, but initiatives still appear divorced from affecting robust military improvements at the national level. Under declining defense spending, buck-passing increased only modestly (8%-13%), with ongoing deployments supporting continued investment in the military. These findings imply that defense spending decline does not mean a European choice to demilitarize, but a choice to reform, sometimes in tandem with defense collaboration or buck-passing.

The purpose of this dissertation is to analyze the effects of public policies on rural-urban migration and human capital expansion, and to examine the role of human capital (among other domestic and external factors) in the long-term economic growth of developing countries. Human capital expansion and labor migration from villages to cities are two aspects of the structure of labor markets in poor countries that are continuously influenced by public policies— policies that are often either ineffective or have unintended adverse consequences. For example, while much of human resource policy in developing countries is directed toward increasing the supply of educated labor, inter sectoral in-country migration and unemployment have become more pronounced, requiring new thinking on policy responses. This dissertation analyzes the outcomes of such policies and offers insights into how they might be improved. Chapter 2 extends a two-sector, general-equilibrium model of rural-urban migration to include government spending. Provision of public goods acts as a productivity-enhancing input in private production that results in external economies of scale. This approach is generalized by introducing an unbalanced allocation of public expenditure in rural and urban sectors due to political economy considerations, differential sector output elasticities with respect to government input, and distortionary taxation. The chapter studies the effects of an increase in public spending and taxation on sectoral outputs, factor prices, urban unemployment, and welfare. Of particular concern here is to study the effect of an unbalanced allocation of government spending between rural and urban areas. Chapter 3 studies the effects of selected education policies on the size of the educated labor pool and on economic welfare using the “job ladder” model of education, which is relevant to liberal arts education in developing countries. The policies considered are (1) increasing the teacher student ratio, (2) raising the relative wage of teachers, and (3) increasing the direct subsidy per student. In addition, the chapter analyzes the impact of wage rigidities in the skilled or modern sector on the size of the educated labor force. The analysis consists of five major sections. First, it reformulates the Bhagwati-Srinivasan job ladder model to make it amenable to analyzing the comparative static results of the effects of selected policies. Second, since higher education is mostly publicly financed, the analysis extends the job ladder model to incorporate public financing of the education sector. It then examines that model along with the effects of changes in policy parameters. Third, the analysis develops another extension of the job ladder model to include private tuition practices by teachers that are prevalent in many developing countries. Fourth, to analyze the impact of wage rigidities in a less restrictive framework where individuals can choose education based on ability and cost, the chapter develops an overlapping generations model of education with job ladder assumptions of wage rigidities in the skilled or modern sector. The chapter examines the flexible market and fixed market (with wage rigidities) equilibrium scenarios, and compares the impact on the threshold level of abilities and the size of the educated labor force. Finally, using specific functional forms of human capital production, cost, and ability density functions, the chapter analyzes the equilibrium outcomes. The analysis shows that in an economy with wage rigidities in the skilled sectors (modern and education sectors), the result of quality-enhancing policies under the simple job ladder model is an increase in the total size of the educated labor force. However, under an extended version of the job ladder model, the result depends on the relative size of the effects of an increase in the cost of education and the effects of an increase in the expected wage. The overlapping generations/job ladder model formulation used in the chapter finds that an increase in the present value of the expected wage and/or an increase in the marginal product of education will increase the demand for education. The minimum threshold level of ability falls, and more people are encouraged to acquire educational skills. Chapter 4 estimates the effects of openness, trade orientation, human capital, and other factors on total factor productivity (TFP) and output for a pooled cross section, time-series sample of countries from Africa and Asia, as well as for the two regions separately. The models are estimated for the level and growth of both TFP and output by using panel fixed effects. The generalized method of moments is also applied to address endogeneity issues. Several variables related to political, financial, and economic risks are used as instruments, together with the lagged values of the dependent and endogenous explanatory variables. The data for this study span 40 years (1972–2011) and are grouped into five-year averages. Several sources were used to obtain the most updated data, including the newly released Penn World Table (Version 8.0). The chapter finds that inducing a greater outward orientation generally boosts TFP, per capita output, and growth. Greater accumulation of human capital has a consistently positive effect on output and TFP growth in both Africa and Asia. Its positive influence comes rather independently of trade variables than interactive terms with openness. Furthermore, inflation does not negatively affect growth, although inflation variability is found to adversely affect TFP and output in Africa. Chapter 5 concludes the dissertation by providing conclusions, a summary of major results, and possible directions for future research.

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / Essa dissertação tem como objetivo analisar a eficiência e eficácia do gasto público em segurança nos estados brasileiros para o período 2005-2008, verificando se a baixa eficácia e/ou não significância encontrada na literatura pode ser explicada pela ineficiência na utilização dos recursos. Para alcançar os objetivos traçados, utilizamos a metodologia da Análise Envoltória de Dados para estimar a eficiência relativa entre os estados brasileiros, elaborando um ranking de eficiência entre os estados e separando-os em eficientes e ineficientes. Assim, dividimos a amostra em dois grupos: estados eficientes e ineficientes, permitindo estimar e comparar modelos de dados em painel para as duas amostras e no modelo geral. Além da elaboração de um ranking, que permitiu a comparação dos estados pelo critério da eficiência, os resultados do estudo apresentam evidências de que a eficácia dos gastos públicos em segurança está relacionada com a eficiência dos estados na utilização desses recursos. / This dissertation aims to analyze the efficiency and effectiveness of public spending on security in the Brazilian states during the period 2005-2008, verifying that the low efficacy and / or non-significance found in the literature can be explained by inefficient use of resources. To achieve the goals set, we use the methodology of data envelopment analysis to estimate the relative efficiency between the Brazilian states, producing a ranking of efficiency among state and separating them into efficient and inefficient. So, we divided the sample into two groups: efficient and inefficient states, allowing to estimate and compare models of panel data for the two samples and in the general model. Besides the development of a ranking, which allowed a comparison of the states by the criterion of efficiency, the study results provide evidence that the effectiveness of public spending on security is related to the efficiency of the states in their use.

This work describes the greatest flood damages in Czech Republic, the ways, how were this damages deleted and role of other public institutions in this process. It describes the role of commercial insturance companies, changes in its access and last but not least about spending programs connected with damages caused by floods.

Universidade Federal do Cearà / Este trabalho apresenta um estudo sobre os recursos do Fundef, sua institucionalidade e como os recursos sÃo recolhidos e aportados para os Estados e MunicÃpios. O estudo analisa os ganhos como o Sistema de Financiamento adotado pelo Governo Federal a partir de 1998 (Fundef) e alguns aspectos importantes presente na Lei de Diretrizes e Base da EducaÃÃo Brasileira (LDB). AlÃm destes elementos, a pesquisa contemplam um estudo descritivo, analisando os resultados dos gastos(recursos do Fundef) associados aos indicadores educacionais como: nÃmero de funÃÃes docentes, nÃmero de professores com licenciatura completa, taxa de evasÃo escolar nos anos de 2000 a 2003. Os resultados mais importantantes da pesquisa mostraram que os recursos recebidos atravÃs do Fundef, mesmo em grandes aportes pouco modificaram os indicadores educacionais, possivelmente pelo mau uso dos recursos. Focalizando os municÃpios do Estado do Cearà que tambÃm recebera grandes volumes de recursos, e que em grande parte foram destinados as contrataÃÃes para funÃÃes docentes, reproduziu-se o que aconteceu na maioria dos municÃpios do pais, isto Ã, contrataÃÃo de mÃo-deobra desqualificada. / This paper presents a study on the resources of the FUNDEF, its institutionality and how resources are collected and contributed to the States and Municipalites. The study examines the gain as the Financing Federal Government from 1998 (FUNDEF), and some important aspects of this in Act Guidelines and Base Education Brasileira(LDB).In addition to these elements, the survey include a descriptive study, analyzing the results of spending resources of associated with educational indicators such as: number of funcions teaches in the years de 2000 to 2003. The most relevant results of the survey shwed that the funds received through the FUNDEF, even in Lange contributions educational indicators little changed, possibly by misuse. Focalizando the municipalities of the state of Cearà that received Lange amounts of resources, and that the contracts were intended for teaches functions, reproduced at what happerned in the vast majority of municipalities in the country, thas is, hiring of labour- disqualified.

O objetivo geral desta tese é analisar a relação entre a educação e a violência através de dois ensaios. Embora estes ensaios sejam independentes quanto à abordagem teórica e à metodologia empregada, são complementares ao responder o problema desta pesquisa que é analisar se a educação e a escola podem contribuir para reduzir o crime e a violência. No primeiro ensaio buscam-se evidências de que a atuação pública na área da educação pode contribuir para reduzir o crime no médio e longo prazo, uma vez que a educação é uma variável que compõe o modelo tradicional do crime e que pode ser afetada por políticas públicas. Dessa forma, para mensurar o impacto do gasto público em educação na redução da taxa de homicídios, foi estimado um modelo utilizando dados em painel dos estados brasileiros, nos anos de 2001 a 2009 e empregando a metodologia GMM-SYS, que permite introduzir defasagens aos regressores. Os resultados das estimativas mostraram uma elasticidade negativa de aproximadamente 0,1 entre o crime e os gastos públicos em educação, na primeira defasagem, indicando que políticas públicas educacionais podem contribuir para reduzir a criminalidade, porém é necessário um período para que os resultados sejam observados. Já no segundo ensaio, são analisados alguns fatores do ambiente escolar e do seu entorno que podem contribuir para a manifestação do comportamento violento dos alunos, com base na teoria da interação social que estabelece que as ações dos indivíduos são influenciadas tanto pelas redes sociais que eles formam quanto pelas ações de seus antecessores. Para isso, foi estimado um modelo logit de efeito fixo, utilizando dados da Prova Brasil, nos anos de 2007 e 2009. Os resultados mostraram que a possibilidade de observar um ato agressivo de um aluno é maior em ambientes escolares com traços da violência, onde foi observada uma ação violenta de um professor ou ocorreram crimes contra patrimônio, contra a pessoa, tráfico de drogas ou atuação de gangues. De forma geral, os resultados desta tese indicaram que políticas públicas na área de educação podem ser usadas como forma de combater a violência no médio e longo prazo e, para isso, é necessário que a escola funcione como um espaço para desenvolver conhecimento, habilidades e noções de moralidade e civilidade. / The main objective of this thesis is to analyze the relation between education and violence in two papers. Although these papers are independent concerning their theoretical approach and methodology, they are complementary to answer the research problem, which is to examine whether school education can contribute to reduce crime and violence. In the first paper we searched evidence that public action towards education can help reduce crime in the medium and long term, since education is a variable of the traditional crime model which may be affected by public policy. Thus, to measure the impact of public spending on education in reducing homicide rate, we estimated a Brazilian states panel data, from 2001 to 2009, using the GMM-SYS methodology, which allows introducing lags for regressors. The estimation results showed a negative elasticity of approximately 0.1 between crime and public spending on education in the first lag, indicating that educational policies can contribute to crime reduction, but a period is needed so that results can be observed. In the second paper we analyze some factors of the school environment and its surroundings that may contribute to student violent behavior, based on the social interaction theory which establishes that the actions of individuals are influenced by their social networks and the actions of their predecessors. For this, we estimated a fixed effect logit model, using Prova Brasil data, of 2007 and 2009. The results showed that the possibility of observing an aggressive student act is higher in school with traces of violence, where one could witness a teacher\'s violent action, crime against property, against a person, drug dealing or gang activity. Generally, the results of this thesis indicate that public policies in education can be used as a way to fight violence in the medium and long term and, thus, it is necessary that school works as a space to develop knowledge, skills and notions of morality and civility.

<div>In my main dissertation essay, I investigate advertising spending during a recession. Advertising plays an important role in creating awareness, preference and purchase intent for many products and services. However, advertising is often cut when a firm needs to control costs. This empirical study examines a unique set of factors which motivated 553 firms to change their advertising spending during the Great Recession. The first half of the Great Recession had a moderate 2% decline in GDP and 1% to 2% cuts in advertising spending. The seasonality effect was weaker, which indicates that firms were not as likely to carryover spending from the prior year. The peak of the Great Recession had a GDP decline as high as 7%, which is considered severe. Average advertising spending declined by 13%. In addition to the seasonality effect, decreasing sales decreased advertising spending. Increasing firm risk tends to decrease advertising spending during the peak of the Great Recession, but not before. Finally, firms in high advertising intensity industries, where advertising is strategically important, had modest budget cuts. In contrast, firms in low-intensity industries had much larger percentage cuts.</div><div>The second essay examines real earnings management using advertising budgets” examines. Real earnings management occurs when managers change real activities to meet or beat important earnings benchmarks. Advertising has a limited short-term impact on firm sales for many products. Therefore, when a firm’s earnings are below key benchmarks for a fiscal quarter (year), managers are compelled to reduce advertising expenditures to boost earnings. This study examines factors which persuade firms to manage earnings using advertising budgets. Similar to earlier studies, we find firms suspect of managing earnings upwards reducing advertising expenses. The findings indicate that B2C firms are more likely to manage earnings by reducing advertising expenses than B2B firms. The findings also reveal that suspect firms which spend more in high advertising elasticity mediums such as TV do not reduce advertising spending as much as firms which spend more in low advertising elasticity mediums such as newspapers and magazines. The study also find evidence to suggest that suspect firms which report advertising expenditure in their income statement make smaller advertising spending cuts than firms which don’t report advertising expenditure. Finally, earnings management activity is much stronger during the last quarter of the fiscal year.</div>

Since 2011, drastic declines in tuition revenue for many rural community colleges have hindered institutional budgets and have been the primary driver for the financial strategy decisions made by college leaders. Recent declines in revenue for rural community colleges have created a constrained fiscal environment causing college leaders to increase focus on internal operations. The aim of this research was to expand the understanding of how management decisions influence tuition revenue when demand fluctuates. Data from multiple archival sources including several national and state statistical databases were used. This study used a multiple regression analysis to investigate the relationships between tuition revenue and (a) tuition rate setting strategy, (b) the management of institutional funds, (c) local economic conditions, and (d) age demographics. It was found that tuition rate setting strategy had the largest influence on tuition revenue among the internally controlled factors. Age demographics and economic conditions were found to be significant external factors that influence the tuition revenue at rural community colleges. This study promotes positive social change by providing financial leaders at community colleges greater insight into budgeting strategies that may help protect the financial viability of rural community colleges. The financial strength of community colleges is important for positive social change in rural communities because it assures that these institutions can continue to offer and expand solutions that meet the educational needs of the local communities they serve at a price affordable by all.

A partir da análise da literatura nacional e internacional sobre eficiência no uso de recursos na educação, observa-se que esta eficiência é objeto de estudo em uma ampla gama de variáveis que procuram explicá-la. Deste modo, este estudo tem por objetivo: a) gerar uma tipologia que caracterize os perfis das redes municipais de ensino; b) avaliar a eficiência dos gastos públicos em educação fundamental; c) verificar se os perfis de clusters estão associados ao melhor nível de eficiência no uso dos recursos na educação fundamental. Dessa forma pretende-se observar quais são as variáveis discricionárias e não-discricionárias que estão correlacionadas com o perfil da gestão educacional das Unidades Tomadoras de Decisão (DMU), no caso os municípios, bem como analisar a eficiência dos mesmos. O estudo identifica estas variáveis em agrupamentos de municípios clusters com o uso de dados de todos os 5.570 municípios brasileiros. Assim, é possível analisar os agrupamentos de municípios de acordo com as características relevantes para a definição de prioridades de ação e, no interior de cada grupo, a construção de rankings de municípios, segundo os indicadores específicos. O intuito de compor agrupamentos é permitir a caracterização dos municípios, valendo-se da idéia de que a tipologia de municípios é um modo mais transparente de hierarquizar os diferentes perfis de gestão municipal bem como diferentes situações sociais e econômicas observadas. As opções descartadas seriam as estratégias arbitrárias de ponderação das referidas variáveis. Outra característica deste trabalho é permitir a identificação dos fatores que colocam os municípios em situação de vantagem, ou desvantagem, em relação aos demais municípios, no uso eficiente de recursos públicos nos sistemas municipais de ensino fundamental. A tipologia municipal delineou cinco perfis com características singulares em seus respectivos indicadores. Os resultados do estudo demonstram que o perfil da gestão educacional dos municipíos, definidas através da análise de conglomerados, estão associados aos resultados de eficiência da respectiva política. Nota-se que as estratificações que apresentam os melhores indicadores também correspondem às mesmas que possuem melhor eficiência / From the analysis of the national and international literature on efficiency in the use of resources in education, it is observed that this efficiency is object of study in a wide range of variables that seek to explain it. This study aims to generate a typology that characterizes the educational management model of the municipalities and that represents their socioeconomic context, as well as to verify which variables, as identified in the published studies, are associated with the best efficiency liquid without use of resources in education in each identified cluster. Thus, we are known as discretionary and non-discretionary variables that are correlated with the educational management profile of the Decision-Making Units (DMU), there are no cases of municipalities, as well as the analysis of them. The study identifies these variables in groupings of municipalities - clusters - using data from all 5,570 Brazilian municipalities. Thus, it will be possible to analyze the municipalities\' groups according to the characteristics relevant to the definition of priorities for action and, within each group, the construction of rankings of municipalities, according to the specific indicators. The aim is to compose clusters and allow the characterization of municipalities, using the idea of being typified municipalities and a more transparent way of hierarchizing the different profiles of municipal management as well as different social and economic situations observed. Discarded options would be like the arbitrary strategy of disease weighting. The municipal basic education services, as well as the use of information systems, communication and evaluation of public resources. A municipal typology outlined five profiles with unique characteristics in their indicator resources. The results of the study demonstrate that the municipal management profile, through the analysis of conglomerates, is associated to the results of its greater efficiency. It should be noted that stratifications which provided at the best canals correnpondem which best best efficiency