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I will make a presentation on preferences for redistribution at the Economics and Politics Research Group Seminar on Wednesday, October 21, 2015.

Please find below the details. All are welcome!

The Economics and Politics (CNPq) Research Group presents:
Wealth, economic shocks and preference for redistribution: The security-income trade-off
Maurício Bugarin, Universidade de Brasília (UnB)
Wednesday, October 21, 2015
4:30-5:45 pm
FACE Auditorium
University of Brasilia

This is an open access event; there is no need to register.
The complete seminar schedule can be found here (http://econpolrg.com/seminars/)
Organizers: Mathieu Turgeon & Mauricio Bugarin

O Economics and Politics Research Group (EPRG, http://www.econpolrg.com), tem o prazer de convidá-lo(a) para o seminário de seu Ciclo 2015-II de Seminários de Pesquisa, descrito a seguir.

Apresentador: Maurício Bugarin, Universidade de Brasília (UnB)
Título: Wealth, economic shocks and preference for redistribution: The security-income trade-off
Data: QUARTA-FEIRA, 21 DE OUTUBRO DE 2015
Horário: 16:30h-17:45h
Local: Auditório da FACE, Universidade de Brasília, Campus Darcy Ribeiro, Asa Norte, Brasília

Entrada livre, sem necessidade de registro prévio.
Consulte o programa completo do Ciclo 2015-II de Seminários de Pesquisa do EPRG no site do grupo: http://www.econpolrg.com/seminars
Organizadores: Mathieu Turgeon (IPOL) & Mauricio Bugarin (ECO/FACE)

The article: “Efficiency in a Monotonic Partnership with Investment: An endogenous implementation of Holmström’s Principal” has been published in Bulletin of Business and Economics as the leading article of the issue 4(3).

Abstract
This note presents a model of a partnership that requires initial investment. The production technology depends on partners’ effort choices and, possibly, on an exogenous stochastic term. When the technology is monotonic, the paper shows that the need for an investor is a sufficient condition to ensure efficiency. Efficient sharing rules arise endogenously as outcomes of optimal contracts between the investor and the partners. This result illustrates how a Principal-agent structure can naturally arise in a partnership, without changing its basic internal structure. Indeed, the investor emerges as an (external) implementation of a budget-breaker Principal that solves the inefficiency problem inherent to partnerships, as suggested in Holmström (1982).

The article “A didactic note on the use of Benford’s Law in public works auditing with an application to the construction of the Brazilian ‘Amazon Arena’ 2014
World Cup soccer stadium”, co-authored with Flávia Ceccato R. da Cunha, has been accepted for publication in the Japanese journal エコノミア (Economia).

Abstract
Globalization requires developing countries’ governments to invest heavily in expensive large-scale infrastructure projects in order to keep on the map of an ever more competitive world. In a context of capital constraint, it is essential to keep public procurement works at their lowest possible cost while assuring a high quality output. This paper introduces Benford’s Law as a tool to detect overpricing in worksheets of public works. That law suggests that the frequency of the first digit in a multitude of non-manipulated numerical databases decreases successively from digit 1 (about 30%) to digit 9 (less than 5%). The paper describes a few relevant statistical tests of Benford’s Law and applies them to the construction work of Brazil’s Amazon Arena 2014 World Cup soccer stadium. Then, it compares Benford’s Law results with those obtained from the analysis of prices conducted by the Brazilian Court of Accounts (TCU). The tests identified items in the worksheet that did not comply with the Law and corresponded to over 80% of the total overprice uncovered by TCU. That identification required auditing only 65% of total procurement costs, whereas the methodology used by TCU audited about 80% of total costs. Finally, we propose an alternative algorithm for selecting the sample to be audited while still auditing the conventional 80% of total costs.

Keywords: Audit. Public works. Benford’s Law. Overpricing. Public expenditure.

The article “Incentivos à Corrupção e à Inação no Serviço Público: Uma análise de desenho de mecanismos” has been accepted for publication in Estudos Econômicos.

Abstract

The present paper analyzes the institutional incentives public managers face in Brazil. A decision-theoretic model suggests that the constitutional principle of “Legality” induces tenured civil servants to adopt a non-innovative, bureaucratic management. On the other hand, temporary appointed managers tend to be more active, which could either generate higher social returns, in the case of socially inclined managers, or lower social return, in the case of managers involved in corrupt activities. A preliminary panel data econometric analysis spanning from 2002 to 2013 suggests that Ministries with higher percentages of temporary appointed managers tend to present higher levels of corruption. A mechanism design approach shows how institutions could be adjusted in order to stimulate socially-beneficial innovative management while curbing corrupt practices in the country.

Keywords: Public management, the Legality Constitutional Principle, the Efficiency Constitutional Principle, Innovative management, Corruption

O Economics and Politics Research Group (EPRG, http://www.econpolrg.com), tem o prazer de convidá-lo(a) para OS EVENTOS DA SEMANA de seu Ciclo 2015-II de Seminários de Pesquisa, descritos a seguir.

MESA REDONDA: A NOVA FACE DO GDF
Apresentadores:
Leany Barreiro de Sousa Lemos, Secretária de Planejamento, Orçamento e Gestão
Arthur Trindade M. Costa, Secretário de Segurança Pública e Paz Social
Lúcio Rennó, Presidente, CODEPLAN
Ivone Rezende Diniz, Diretora Presidente, FAPDF
Data: QUARTA-FEIRA, 7 DE OUTUBRO DE 2015
Horário: 11:00h-13:00h
Local: Auditório da FACE, Universidade de Brasília, Campus Darcy Ribeiro, Asa Norte, Brasília

ATENÇÃO PARA O HORÁRIO: 11 HORAS!

SEMINÁRIO: Attitudes Toward Affirmative Action Policies Among Whites and Non-Whites: the Case of Racial Quotas in University Admissions in Brazil
Apresentador: Mathieu Turgeon, Political Science Institute, University of Brasilia-IPOL/UnB
Data: QUARTA-FEIRA, 7 DE OUTUBRO DE 2015
Horário: 16:30h-17:45h
Local: Auditório da FACE, Universidade de Brasília, Campus Darcy Ribeiro, Asa Norte, Brasília

Entrada livre, sem necessidade de registro prévio.
O programa completo do Ciclo 2015-II de Seminários de Pesquisa do EPRG será disponibilizado no site do grupo: http://www.econpolrg.com/seminars
Organizadores: Mathieu Turgeon (IPOL) & Mauricio Bugarin (ECO/FACE)

The Economics and Politics (CNPq) Research Group presents:

ROUND TABLE CONFERENCE:
A NOVA FACE DO GDF
Leany Barreiro de Sousa Lemos, Secretária de Planejamento, Orçamento e Gestão
Arthur Trindade M. Costa, Secretário de Segurança Pública e Paz Social
Lúcio Rennó, Presidente, CODEPLAN
Ivone Rezende Diniz, Diretora Presidente, FAPDF
Wednesday, October 7, 2015
11:00am-1 pm
FACE Auditorium
University of Brasilia

SEMINAR:
Attitudes Toward Affirmative Action Policies Among Whites and Non-Whites: the Case of Racial Quotas in University Admissions in Brazil
Mathieu Turgeon, Political Science Institute, University of Brasilia-IPOL/UnB
Wednesday, October 7, 2015
4:30-5:45 pm
FACE Auditorium
University of Brasilia

These are an open access events; there is no need to register.
The complete seminar schedule can be found here (http://econpolrg.com/seminars/)
Organizers: Mathieu Turgeon & Mauricio Bugarin

The book “Cargos de Confiança no Presidencialismo de Coalizão Brasileiro” edited by Felix Lopez has just been published by IPEA.

Chapter 1 of the book, “Mudanças Político-Partidárias e Rotatividade dos Cargos de Confiança (1999-2013)” is a research on DAS (political appointments) turnover in Brazilian Federal government for the period 1999-2013.

Please access the entire book here.

You can also access the Introduction and Chapter 1 here.

The short article: ブラジルの環境問題と環境省人事 (Environment issues in Brazil and turnover in the Brazilian Ministry of the Environment), coauthored with Keiichi Yamazaki, has been published as the leading article in the September 2015 issue of ブラジル特報 (Burajiru Tokuhou – Brazil Dispatch), a publication of the Central Nipo-Brazilian Association (Associação Central Nipo-Brasileira), Tokyo, Japan.

Check the article (in Japanese) here.

The note “Efficiency in a Monotonic Partnership with Investment: An endogenous implementation of Holmström’s Principal” has been accepted for publication in the September 2015 issue of Bulletin of Business and Economics.

Abstract:
This note presents a model of a partnership that requires initial investment. The production technology depends on partners’ effort choices and, possibly, on an exogenous stochastic term. When the technology is monotonic, the paper shows that the need for an investor is a sufficient condition to ensure efficiency. Efficient sharing rules arise endogenously as outcomes of optimal contracts between the investor and the partners. This result illustrates how a Principal-agent structure can naturally arise in a partnership, without changing its basic internal structure. Indeed, the investor emerges as an (external) implementation of a budget-breaker Principal that solves the inefficiency problem inherent to partnerships, as suggested in Holmström (1982).

The paper “Lei de Benford para a Auditoria de Obras Públicas; Análise de Sobrepreço na Construção da Arena da Amazônia” has been published in BLC – Boletim de Licitações e Contratos published by NDJ.

The paper applies a methodology based on Benford’s Law to analyze the UNIT PRICES’ woksheet for the construction of the Amazon Arena 2014 FIFA World Cup Stadium.

The short article: ブラジルの環境問題と環境省人事 (Environment issues in Brazil and turnover in the Brazilian Ministry of the Environment), coauthored with Keiichi Yamazaki, has been accepted for publication in the September 2015 issue of ブラジル特報 (Burajiru Tokuhou – Brazil Dispatch), a publication of the Central Nipo-Brazilian Association (Associação Central Nipo-Brasileira), Tokyo, Japan.