Este trabalho busca trazer robustez aos resultados observados em estudos comparativos entre escolas públicas e privadas do Brasil, que indicam uma maior capacidade da rede particular de ensino em gerar qualidade educacional. Para isso, uma abordagem quantílica, baseada na seleção em observadas, foi realizada. Vale ressaltar que, ao contrário de outras abordagens, a realizada nesta dissertação tem inferência assintótica. A base de dados utilizada foi a do SAEB de 2005, para as provas de matemática de oitava série. Novamente foi evidenciada uma superioridade das escolas privadas, mesmo controlando para diversas covariadas de alunos, professores e escolas. Este fato fortalece a possibilidade de implantação de políticas de cupons para escolas particulares, apesar de haver a necessidade de estudos adicionais sobre o assunto. Em relação às covariadas que reduziriam a distância entre as distribuições de notas de alunos de escolas públicas e privadas, constatouse que fatores determinantes do grupo de alunos na escola e na sala (peer group effects) seriam os mais importantes. Isso corrobora com resultados de outros trabalhos que evidenciam a importância desses fatores para explicar a maior efetividade das escolas privadas em relação às escolas públicas. / This paper aims at bringing strength to the results observed in other studies that point out a larger ability of the private school network to generate quality education in Brazil. To achieve that result, this study applies a quantile approach based on the selection on observable variables. Note that unlike other approaches , the one applied in this dissertation has asymptotic inference. The data base used in this study was that of SAEB 2005 for math tests in the 8th grade. As in other studies, here again the superiority of the private schools was made evident, even though various students\', teachers\' and schools\' covariates are controlled. This result strengthens the possibility of a policy of quotas for private schools, although additional studies on the subject are necessary. In relation to the variables that would reduce the distance between the grades distributions of students on public and private schools, peer group effects were observed to be the more important ones. These results are similar to the ones observed in other studies that point out the importance of the peer group effects to explain the higher effectiveness of the private schools in comparison to the public schools.

Ao longo dos últimos anos tem se observado no mundo uma expansão do setor leiteiro. Parte dessa expansão se deve a novas tecnologias que foram adotadas nas últimas décadas, mas também ocorreu por causa da queda, ou da anulação de barreiras comerciais. Contudo, notou-se também uma queda no número de fazendas leiteiras. Sendo o leite uma commodity os preços seguem as oscilações de mercado - oferta e demanda - e nenhum dos agentes possui poder para influenciar nos preços de compra e venda dessa mercadoria. Como os boletins do CEPEA mostram, os preços no ano passado têm-se mantido abaixo da média histórica, referente à última década, mas os termos de troca com relação a quantidade de litros de leite para se comprar insumos e defensivos se mantêm em patamares estáveis com tendência de alta. Tendo em vista esse problema, surge a necessidade de buscar compreender melhor como funciona o sistema de produção do setor leiteiro. Este trabalho satisfatoriamente conseguiu detectar através das fronteiras estocásticas de produção simples - leite como único produto de saída - e multi-output - leite e outros produtos animais existentes nas fazendas - além da regressão quantílica para análise de quantis variados da produção de leite, quais os insumos utilizados pelos produtores que oferecem melhores retornos para sua produção bem como analisar fatores de eficiência (BATTESE, COELLI; 1995; CHIDMI; SOLÍS; CABRERA, 2011). Os resultados apresentados apontam para a necessidade de se levar em consideração a inter-relação entre os insumos considerados - função de produção translog - e identificaram os insumos referentes ao capital - quantidade de vacas ordenhadas e gastos com máquinas e equipamentos - e ao trabalho - gastos com salários - como principais insumos da atividade pecuária. Os gastos com medicamentos animais, com energia elétrica e a área disponível para a atividade pecuária se mostraram contraproducentes indicando mau uso ou uso excessivo desses fatores, além de ressaltar a importância do capital na pecuária. Em geral, para quase todos os modelos testados, a produção leiteira apresentou retornos constantes à escala e nível de eficiência em torno de 88% em média para as fronteiras estocásticas e 90% para as estimativas feitas com regressão quantílica. Entre os fatores de eficiência identificados estão a capacidade de armazenamento de silos e tanques de refrigeração para o leite e a margem bruta líquida obtida com a atividade. Os fatores de ineficiência identificados são a prática de queimadas e o percentual de mulheres na administração das unidades produtivas. Com relação aos variados modelos estimados percebeu-se, em suma, a necessidade de se intensificar a produção pecuária e de melhorar a infraestrutura das fazendas. / Over the past few years it has been observed in the world an expansion of the dairy industry. Part of this expansion is due to new technologies that have been adopted in recent decades, but also because of the fall, or the annulment of trade barriers. However, it has also been noted a drop in the number of dairy farms. Being a commodity, milk prices follow the market oscillations - supply and demand - and none of the agents has enough power to influence buying and selling prices of this commodity. As the CEPEA bulletins show, prices last year have remained below the historical average for the last decade, but the terms of trade regarding the amount of liters of milk to buy inputs and pesticides at levels remain stable with uptrend. In view of this problem, there is the need to get a better understanding of how the dairy sector production system works. This work satisfactorily managed to detect, through the single-output stochastic production frontier method - value of milk production as output - and multi-output - value of milk and other existing animal products at the farms - besides quantile regression analysis for multiple production quantiles, which inputs used by farmers offer the best outcome for their production as well as analyzing efficiency factors (BATTESE; COELLI, 1995; CHIDMI; SOLÍS; CABRERA, 2011). The estimated results pointed to the need of considering the interrelation of considered inputs - translog production function - and identified the capital related inputs - quantity of milked cows and expenditure on machinery and equipment - and work related inputs - expenditure on wages - as main production inputs. Expenditure on animal drugs and on electricity and the area available for livestock activity proved counterproductive indicating misuse or overuse of these factors, in addition to emphasizing the importance of capital in livestock. In general, for most of the tested models, dairy production showed constant returns to scale and an average efficiency level of 88% for stochastic frontier models and 90% for estimates done using quantile regression. Among the identified efficiency factors are the storage capacity of silos and cooling tanks for milk and the net gross margin with activity. The identified inefficiency factors are the practice of burning and the percentage of women in the management of production units. With regard to various models estimated it was realized, in short, the need to intensify livestock production and to improve the infrastructure of the farms.

Submitted by Fabio Sobreira Campos da Costa (fabio.sobreira@ufpe.br) on 2016-07-14T15:34:21Z No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 1232 bytes, checksum: 66e71c371cc565284e70f40736c94386 (MD5) TESE.pdf: 2470605 bytes, checksum: 6f8822a2b24b723e4595a90b6172168f (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-07-14T15:34:21Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 1232 bytes, checksum: 66e71c371cc565284e70f40736c94386 (MD5) TESE.pdf: 2470605 bytes, checksum: 6f8822a2b24b723e4595a90b6172168f (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015-12-22 / FACEPE / A presente tese analisa os principais aspectos teóricos e a relação causal entre corrupção e desigualdade de renda nos municípios brasileiros. Para isso, utilizamos a metodologia de variáveis instrumentais. Essa estratégia requer a utilização de uma variável exógena que afeta o nível de interesse, em nosso caso a variável corrupção, e requer, também, que não seja correlacionada com nenhum fator não observável, relacionado com a variável dependente em um segundo estágio, conhecida como variável instrumental. Para analisar as possíveis heterogeneidades do problema, procedemos com uma análise a partir de regressão quantílica com variável instrumental. Como indicador de corrupção, utilizamos as informações disponíveis nos relatórios da Controladoria Geral da União (CGU) entre 2003 e 2006 e, para medir desigualdade, usamos os índices de Gini e de Theil. Os resultados indicam haver uma relação causal e positiva entre corrupção e desigualdade de renda. Nos quantis, a corrupção afeta os níveis de desigualdade até próximo a quantil 0,50. / The present Thesis aims to analyze the main theoretical features and the causal relationship between corruption and income inequality in the Brazilian municipalities. For this purpose, we applied the Instrumental Variable method. This strategy requires the use of an exogenous variable that affects the level of interest, in our case the variable corruption, and which is not correlated with any other not observable factor, related to a dependent variable in a second stage, known as Instrumental Variable. In order to analyze the possible heterogeneity of the problem, we investigated the data based on the quantile regression method. As a corruption indicator, we deployed the information contained in the Controladoria Geral da União (CGU) reports, released between 2003 and 2006, and as a device for measuring income inequality we applied the index of Gini and Theils. The results point to the presence of a causal and positive relationship between corruption and income inequality. Regarding to quantiles, the corruption affects inequality levels thereabout the quantile 0,50.

Submitted by Marlene Santos (marlene.bc.ufg@gmail.com) on 2016-09-09T14:31:10Z No. of bitstreams: 2 Dissertação - Daniela Vieira de Oliveira - 2016.pdf: 1510275 bytes, checksum: 679036a6f09af67bf9c77fda52973e59 (MD5) license_rdf: 0 bytes, checksum: d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Luciana Ferreira (lucgeral@gmail.com) on 2016-09-09T14:35:00Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 2 Dissertação - Daniela Vieira de Oliveira - 2016.pdf: 1510275 bytes, checksum: 679036a6f09af67bf9c77fda52973e59 (MD5) license_rdf: 0 bytes, checksum: d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2016-09-09T14:35:00Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 Dissertação - Daniela Vieira de Oliveira - 2016.pdf: 1510275 bytes, checksum: 679036a6f09af67bf9c77fda52973e59 (MD5) license_rdf: 0 bytes, checksum: d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-08-31 / Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de Goiás - FAPEG / This study analyzes the relationship between municipal spending on education and average educational performance of municipal schools students in Goiás. The analize evaluate how the municipal public spending on primary education per student influences the average scores of municipalities in Prova Brazil in Portuguese and Mathematics. This study use 4th series / 5th year of Goiás municipal public schools datas, among 25% of municipalities with the worst result and 25% of municipalities with best results, using methods of quantile regressions for 2007, 2009 2011 and 2013. The model of quantile regression estimated’s results indicates that the expenditure per student has a positive and significant impact on municipal average scores in all quantiles for both grades, in Portuguese and Mathematics, for municipal schools in Goiás. Moreover, it’s observed that municipalities that have better average (quantile 0.50 and 0.75), positive influence of spending per student tends to be higher. It is noteworthy that the group with 25% better grades has the highest number of municipalities with expenses for students above the state average and Municipal Human Development Index (HDI), literacy rate and GDP per capita above rates presented to state in both disciplines. / O presente trabalho investiga a relação entre gastos públicos municipais em educação e o desempenho escolar médio da rede municipal de ensino goiana. Tal análise é realizada avaliando o quanto os gastos públicos municipais em educação fundamental por aluno influenciam as notas médias dos municípios na Prova Brasil em Língua Portuguesa e em Matemática. São utilizados os dados da Prova a 4º série/5º ano da rede pública municipal goiana, dentre os 25% dos municípios com pior resultado e os 25% dos municípios com melhor resultado, por meio do uso dos métodos de Regressões Quantílicas para os anos 2007, 2009, 2011 e 2013. Os resultados encontrados para o modelo de Regressão Quantílica estimado apontam que o gasto por aluno tem impacto positivo e significativo nas notas médias municipais em todos os quantis tanto para as notas em Língua Portuguesa, quanto para Matemática da rede municipal de ensino fundamental goiana. Além disso, é observado que, nos municípios que apresentam melhores médias (quantil 0,50 e 0,75), a influência positiva do gasto por aluno tende a ser maior. Ressalta-se ainda que, o grupo com as 25% melhores notas apresenta a maior quantidade de municípios com Gastos por alunos acima da média estadual e Índice de Desenvolvimento Humano Municipal (IDH-M), Taxa de Alfabetização e PIB per capita acima dos índices apresentados para o Estado em ambos os anos e disciplinas.

The drivers of CO2 emissions are a widely studied subject of great importance to both individual countries and the global community. However, the inclusion of a quantitative measure of political uncertainty, national and global, has until now been largely overlooked. We investigate how geopolitical uncertainty (GPU) and income interact with CO2 emissions using a panel quantile regression approach for a set of 63 nations over the period 1985-2014. Our key findings are; (i) a consistent negative (positive) relation between global (local) uncertainty and the different CO2 emission distribution levels, (ii) the relation between uncertainty and emissions is heterogeneous across different income groups, (iii) clear and consistent evidence for the Environmental Kuztnet Curve hypothesis with respect to uncertainty, (iiii) when deciding on environmental policy, it is of great importance to consider political uncertainty and whether to use a local or global measure.

本文採用1989年10月2日至2017年4月12日的台灣股市加權指數日資料，並分為漲跌幅限制為7%的區間一，以及放寬為10%的區間二。接著使用〔(最高價-最低價)/昨日收盤價〕以及〔(收盤價-開盤價)/昨日收盤價〕兩個不同變數來衡量台灣股市單日的波動與報酬，然後也運用了週轉率、成交金額、5日均值比三種方法來估算股市成交量。藉此探討台灣股市波動與成交量的關係。使用的方法是分量迴歸模型，更細部的研究股市上漲或下跌時，每個分量之下不同的價量關係。 實證結果顯示，台灣股市普遍存在「價漲量增」與「價跌量增」的現象，且在波動越大的時候也就是分量尾端的部分，其關係更加的明顯。另外，使用三種變數來衡量成交量，在區間二大致得出相同的結論，但是區間一因為週轉率與成交金額的歷史走勢具有差異，所以結果也不盡相同。但是使用週轉率在歷史樣本中更具有相同的比較基礎，因此得出的結論也較一致，所以認為台灣股市仍是以「價漲量增」與「價跌量增」為普遍現象。 / This paper used the Taiwan stock market index daily data from October 2, 1989 to April 12, 2017, which divided into a range of 7% of the price limit, and a range of 10%. There are two different variables to measure the volatility and return: [(the highest price - the lowest price) / yesterday's closing price] and [(closing price - opening price) / yesterday's closing price], and three different variables: turnover, dealing amount, 5-day average ratio to estimate the stock market volume. The method used is quantile regression model, and that allows us to observe different relationship between volatility and volume under every single quantile. Empirical results show that there are two phenomena exist in the stock market of Taiwan: "rising values increase in volume" and "falling values increase in volume." In addition, the use of three variables to measure the volume, in the interval 2 roughly come to the same conclusion, but in the interval 1 because the historical trend of turnover rate and dealing amount are different, so the results are not the same. But the use of turnover in the history sample has the same comparison basis, so the conclusions are more consistent, so that the Taiwan stock market is still the " rising values increase in volume " falling values increase in volume" as a common phenomenon.

This descriptive study examines the gender pay gap across the income distribution in metropolitan and nonmetropolitan areas in the United States in two periods in the 2000’s. In metro areas, the raw gender pay gapgrows larger in the top of the income distribution. In non-metro areas however, the raw gender pay gap isrelatively even in the upper tail of the distribution and does not show this accelerating pattern. Moreover,the study takes a quantile regression approach to measure the adjusted gender pay gaps conditional onhuman capital variables. Comparisons show that the raw gender pay gap has decreased over time, while thecorresponding adjusted gender pay gap has increased over time. This seems to be explained mainly by theincrease in women’s educational attainment, but also convergence of men’s and women’s work experience.In non-metro areas, this generates an adjusted gap that is substantially bigger in the top quantiles in thelatter period. In metro areas, the pattern of a successively widening gap in the top of the distribution persists.

Soil salinization is of great concern in the irrigated arid and semi-arid western United States due to its threat to sustainable agricultural productivity and thus is closely monitored. A widely accepted and traditional standard method for estimating soil salinity is the electrical conductivity of the saturated paste extracts (ECe). However, this method underestimates salinity due to ion pair formation in high ionic strength solution. Numerous studies have recommended the use of an electromagnetic induction (EMI) sensing technique to monitor field-scale soil salinity due to rapidness and non-destructiveness of the sampling. However, because the EMI measurement (ECa) is related to a host of soil properties, calibrating ECa to salinity in a non-homogeneous setting is particularly challenging. The main objective of this study is to understand the dynamics and interacting factors controlling soil salinity using an EMI sensor. Specifically, a correction is made for the underestimation of soil salinity from saturated paste extracts, and a calibration model is developed that is capable of predicting salinity directly from ECa despite the non-homogeneity of potential perturbing factors. A comparison is made of salinity measurement methods based on soil saturated pastes with respect to specific soil management goals. Results show that ion pairing exists even in low ionic strength solution and by diluting the saturated paste extracts to conductivities ≤ 0.03 dS m -1 (ECed), ion pairing is minimized. An improved salinity estimate is obtained by computing total dissolved solids (TDS, in mM) from the ECed values, and then multiplying the TDS by the dilution factor. We also developed a calibration model using quantile regression, which makes no assumption about the distribution of the errors, and which is capable of predicting low range soil salinity (such as that in calcareous soils) from ECa depth-weighted measurements (ECH25ECe). A comparison of ECe, ECed, ECH25ECe, and direct measurement of EC in soil pastes (“ Bureau of Soils Cup ” method, ECcup) across six depths, three texture groups, and the combinations of EC method and depth or texture groups, supports the use of the ECH25ECe method to rapidly and reliably monitor salinity in calcareous soils of arid and semiarid regions.

To resolve the wage-risk trade off relationship on the labor market in Czech Republic, we introduce multiple hedonic wage regressions. Empirical theory ad- mits an income and age heterogeneity in value of a statistical life (VSL). This thesis employs a quantile regression along with age-dependent non-fatal and fa- tal on-the-job risk rates to estimate the age and income variation in VSL within a unified framework. Our results, based on EU-SILC 2018 data, implicate an inverted-V-shaped development of VSL with respect to age. The estimates of age-VSL peak for workers within the age cohort 42-47 across most real wage quantile levels and once reaching the maximum point the VSL proceeds to de- cline with age. In order to infer any effects of the global pandemic on VSL, we propose a set of novel COVID-19 control variables. Additionally, we annuitize the VSL estimates, which yields the value of a statistical life year (VSLY). The measures of VSLY correspond to the age and income varying trend of VSL. In conclusion, this thesis offers applicable varying VSL estimates across cohorts and wage distribution to policy-makers and respective authorities. JEL Classification J17, J24, J28, J31, J33 Keywords hedonic wage, compensating wage differential, quantile regression, VSL, income elasticity Title Measuring the...

To avoid the worst effects of climate change, we need to end our reliance on fossil fuels and invest in alternative, renewable sources. Despite making up only 25% of total renewable energy investments, public investment is still vital due to its ability to encourage investments through policy measures and programs. In this paper we investigate how institutional quality, together with other financial, economic and policy variables, affects public renewable energy investments in middle-income countries. We account for the non-normal distribution of our data by conducting a panel quantile regression analysis for 64 middle-income countries. We present the results for the 0.25, 0.50 and 0.75 quantiles, representing countries with low, moderate, or high levels of public renewable energy investments. Our main finding is that absence of corruption is a vital factor for public renewable energy investments, regardless of which stage of the renewable energy transition a middle-income country is in. In the light of corruption, potential market failures are discussed as a consequence which can create a downward spiral for further renewable energy investments. Furthermore, better financial stability will increase these investments as well. We also find that public investors seem to be unaffected by economic policy uncertainty, indicating that these investors play an important role in uncertain times when private investors refrain from investing due to the high uncertainty connected to the irreversibility of these investment projects.