The thesis consists of three papers, summarized as follows. "Female Policymakers and Educational Expenditures: Cross-Country Evidence" This paper investigates the influence of women in politics on decision-making using public educational expenditures as the outcome of interest. The results suggest that an increase in the share of female legislators by one percentage point increases the ratio of educational expenditures to GDP by 0.028 percentage points. The effect of female legislators on educational policies is strengthened accounting for forms of government, but not influenced by left-wing government, electoral rules, parliamentary system and non-marriage. Moreover, this study supports the hypothesis that the identity of the legislator matters for policy. "Women in Politics: A New Instrument for Studying the Impact of Education on Growth" This paper tests the growth model of distance to the technological frontier, which states that an economy closer to the technological frontier should invest more in skilled labor since innovation is a skill-intensive activity. In contrast to Vandenbussche, Aghion, and Meghir (henceforth VAM) (2006), I use the proportion of female legislators as an instrument for skilled labor, instead of lagged educational expenditures. The results with the new instrument are consistent with the theoretical prediction and the previous results of VAM (2006). "Do Gender Quotas Influence Women's Representation and Policies?" This paper investigates the effect of applying gender quotas on policy decisions. The results show that an increase in the share of female legislators by one percentage point increases the ratio of government expenditure on health and social welfare to GDP by 0.18 and 0.67 percentage points, respectively. The robustness check supports that the effect of quotas on female legislators is likely to be translated into the influence of female policymakers on social welfare.

Parmi les 500 plus grandes entreprises mondiales, une sur cinq est chinoise. En 2014, 94 entreprises chinoises figuraient parmi les leaders mondiaux en R&D. La Chine est, depuis 2016, le premier acquéreur d’entreprises étrangères et vise désormais des entreprises de haute-technologie.Ces éléments nous questionnent sur le positionnement technologique des entreprises chinoises. Penser ce thème nous oblige à revenir sur leurs conditions d’émergence. A la lecture du modèle dominant du rattrapage technologique (Kim, 1997), la Chine est passée par trois grandes phases: une période d’acquisition des technologies étrangères suite à l’ouverture du pays en 1978, une période d’assimilation des technologies et d’assemblage et manufacture de produits de plus en plus complexes, et une période d’intégration qui leur permet de faire de nouvelles propositions de produits grâce à la reconfiguration et amélioration des technologies existantes.L’hypothèse qui guide notre recherche est que les entreprises sont désormais dans la dernière phase du rattrapage et sont entrées dans une période de transition vers le leadership technologique. Cela nous amène à poser deux questions. A quoi fait-on référence lorsqu’on parle d’innovation en Chine aujourd’hui ? Ce thème renvoie de manière plus globale à celui de l’innovation par les pays émergents. Quel chemin reste-t-il à parcourir pour atteindre la frontière technologique ?Nous observons cette transition dans la manière dont les grandes entreprises chinoises s’engagent dans la recherche. L’intégration des technologies émergentes au sein de leurs stratégies de recherche reflète des dynamiques d’apprentissage qui, si elles ne sont pas encore visibles sur le marché, indiquent une dynamique de transition. Nos résultats montrent que la tendance est significative, la moitié des grandes entreprises (48%) s’engage en nanotechnologie. Cela reflète l’arrivée à la frontière technologique des entreprises chinoises, ce qui, nous le soulignons, n’implique pas nécessairement le passage à la frontière sur d’autres dimensions, notamment organisationnelles. Nous montrons également que les trajectoires d’engagement dans la recherche sont variées. Si une partie des entreprises s’engagent dans la recherche sur la base d’un modèle similaire à celui des entreprises américaines ou européennes, d’autres dynamiques sont également à l’œuvre, qui traduisent notamment un héritage historique et une inscription dans le territoire.Pour obtenir ces résultats, nous avons construit une base de données exclusive de 325 larges entreprises industrielles, et observé leur prise de brevets en nanotechnologie, directement ou via leurs filiales, sur la base de sources en anglais et en chinois. / Among the world’s 500 largest firms, one out of five is Chinese. In 2014, 94 Chinese firms were among the world leaders in R&D. Since 2016, China is the first acquirer of foreign firms and is now targeting high-technology firms.These recent developments raise questions about the technological positioning of Chinese firms. Studying this topic requires looking at their conditions of emergence. We can look at China’s development from the perspective of the technological catch-up model (Kim, 1997). China has gone through three phases: a phase of acquisition of foreign technology following the country’s opening in 1978, a period of technological assimilation and production of increasingly complex products, and a period of technological integration characterized by technological improvement and the reconfiguration of existing technologies.The hypothesis we make is that firms are now in the last phase of catch-up, and have entered a period of transition to technology leadership. This leads to two questions. What is Chinese innovation today? This topic broadly refers to innovation in emerging countries. How far are Chinese firms from reaching the technological frontier?We observe the transition through the way major Chinese firms engage in research. The integration of emerging technologies into their research strategies reflect dynamics of technological learning which, if they are not yet visible in the market, indicate a transition. Our results show that the trend is significant, with half of large firms (48%) engaging in nanotechnology research. This proportion indicates that Chinese firms have reached the technological frontier. This, however, does not mean that Chinese firms have reached the frontier in other dimensions, such as the organizational dimension. We also show that there are several modalities of commitment to research. While some large Chine firms engage in research by adopting a model similar to that of American or European firms, other dynamics are at work, which reflect, in particular, their historical legacy, and the impact of their localization.To obtain these results, we have built a unique database of 325 large industrial enterprises, and have looked at their patenting activities in nanotechnology, directly or through their subsidiaries, based on the exploitation of sources in English and Chinese.

Submitted by Frederico de Oliveira Bádue (fredbadue@hotmail.com) on 2017-06-17T19:43:00Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertação_Frederico Bádue_2.pdf: 687414 bytes, checksum: 81da6c5415a0fb3da5339384ae9f743d (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Joana Martorini (joana.martorini@fgv.br) on 2017-06-21T12:21:54Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertação_Frederico Bádue_2.pdf: 687414 bytes, checksum: 81da6c5415a0fb3da5339384ae9f743d (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-06-21T12:52:08Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertação_Frederico Bádue_2.pdf: 687414 bytes, checksum: 81da6c5415a0fb3da5339384ae9f743d (MD5) Previous issue date: 2017-05-22 / Examino neste trabalho as relações entre crescimento econômico, distância para a fronteira tecnológica e qualidade do capital humano. Demonstro a importância da qualidade da educação para o crescimento econômico. Mais precisamente, investigo como diferentes níveis de habilidades cognitivas estão correlacionados com diferentes efeitos no crescimento econômico, em razão da distância de cada país para a fronteira tecnológica. Os resultados apresentam evidências de que, usando medidas de habilidades cognitivas para a educação, países próximos a fronteira tecnológica apresentam maior crescimento econômico se a fração de alunos de alta performance for maior sob a premissa que este grupo de países cresce através de inovação. A utilização de métricas de qualidade da educação, com notas padronizadas de testes internacionais de matemática, ciências e leitura, ao invés das tradicionais métricas como anos de escolaridade e investimento público, é a principal contribuição deste estudo que demonstra a relação entre qualidade da educação e crescimento econômico sob a ótica da distância para a fronteira tecnológica. / I analyze in this work the relations between economic growth, distance to the technological frontier and the quality of human capital. I demonstrate the importance of the quality of education for economic growth. More precisely, I investigate how different levels of cognitive skills are correlated with different effects on economic growth, given the distance of each country to the technological frontier. The results find evidence that, using measures of cognitive skills for education, countries closer to the technological frontier present greater economic growth if the fraction of high performance students is higher under the assumption that this group of countries grow through innovation. The use of educational quality metrics using standardized scores in international math, science, and reading tests, rather than traditional metrics such as years of schooling and public investment is the main contribution of this study that demonstrate the relation between education and economic growth from the perspective of the distance to the technological frontier.