Enlinson Mattos

• Getúlio Vargas Foundation

This paper investigates multistage taxes on firms in a limited tax capacity economy. We characterize the optimal taxation of informal firms reinterpreting behavioral and mechanical effects. Our numerical exercises highlight the relationship between misreporting costs and the elasticities of reported revenues and costs. We explore a tax reform in Br...

This paper decomposes the effect of college’s quality signalling on former students’ early labor market outcomes. We propose a new measure of the signal for college quality: the performance of the previous cohort that has graduated three years before the individual in the same institution and major. Using a unique administrative educational data se...

This paper examines the potential effects of testosterone and personality traits on the decision to evade taxes. In a series of experiments, subjects completed behavioural tasks and made a one-shot tax evasion decision. We estimate a negative weakly significant treatment effect, which suggests that an exogenous increase in the testosterone level ma...

Previous works emphasize the role of tax rates as the key feature of tax competition. This paper brings into attention how local jurisdictions consider the level of public provision in infrastructure and the business tax rates as strategic complements to compete for capital. We use a spatial Durbin model to estimate the impact of a change in the pu...

We explore the discontinuity in the allocation of the main federal grant to Brazilian municipalities to identify the local effects of health spending and the spillovers into the bordering jurisdictions. Fiscal reactions are asymmetric: small neighbors reduce health spending, while we do not find a significant budgetary response in the largest neigh...

This article documents fiscal spillovers after an exogenous increase in the main federal transfer to Brazilian municipalities. We explore that Municipalities’ Participation Fund is distributed according to the local population and abruptly changes at some thresholds. We disentangle spillovers using bordering municipalities near different cutoffs, s...

In this paper, we investigate whether federal deputies in Brazil display birthplace favoritism in allocating discretionary resources to municipalities via budgetary amendments. The data include information on three electoral cycles and on more than five thousand municipalities. Unlike previous research, we match data on an elected deputy's share of...

p>Despite the fact of being the largest economy in Latin America, piped water service coverage and sewage collection is not universal in Brazil. The relationship between access to water/sanitation and health was the objective of many studies recently. The majority of the existing work focuses on the impact of access to water and sewage, not investi...

Unraveling the relation of health spending and outcomes between bordering jurisdictions is a first-order concern to better coordinate public health provision. In this paper, we explore the rules governing the main federal grant to Brazilian municipalities , which varies discontinuously near population thresholds, to identify the effects of a subseq...

This work explores that Brazilian public firms were allowed to hire workers either as statutory ("civil servants") as well as under private market labor regime ("CLT"). We use RAIS that matches employer-employee data for all formal firms in Brazil from 2014 to 2016 to control for fixed effects at the individual and firm levels and the Oaxaca-Blinde...

This paper aimed to assess the short term effects of the More Doctors Program, launched by the Brazilian federal government in 2013. Using a differences-in-differences approach with municipal data collected between 2010 and 2015, we confirmed that MDP has two correlated impacts. First, it has increased health service attendance in treated municipal...

This study analyzes the evolution of household income inequality in Brazil from 1977 to 2013. Four quantiles are analyzed: Top 1%, Top 10%, Bottom 10%, and Bottom 50%. The novelty of our study lies in the use of time-series techniques to understand the phenomenon of income inequality. We use the Markov-switching regime change and state-space struct...

This study analyzes the impact of the presence of a retired elderly on family health. We consider The Special Health Supplement of the National Household Sample Survey (Suplemento Especial de Saúde da PNAD-IBGE), conducted on 2008, and the retirement age rule to construct the treatment and control groups, necessary to implement the regression disco...

This paper documents empirical evidence on price-effect caused by lumpsum grants for local governments in Brazil between 2006 to 2010. Dahlby (2011) demonstrates theoretically that lump-sum grants can reduce the cost of public goods provision (price-effect), in addition to the traditional income effect. Our contributions are threefold. First we est...

We characterize the first-best earnings subsidy when agents are heterogeneous with respect to present-biased preferences and cognitive skills. When agents’ health and human capital biased allocations affect not only welfare but also their labor earnings, a single subsidy corrects for agents’ mistaken decisions. We highlight two novel features of pa...

Este trabalho propõe um método para identificar e corrigir a distorção observada na distribuição de população dos municípios brasileiros presente nos dados de Censo Demográfico (Monasterio, 2014). Essa distorção se caracteriza por uma concentração elevada de municípios com valores de população próximos das faixas usadas como critério de distribuiçã...

Resumo: Desde a década de 90 o governo tem desenvolvido diversas ações de fiscalização do mercado de trabalho no Brasil. Este trabalho visa investigar os efeitos da fiscalização sobre a informalidade nos municípios brasileiros. Para isso, é utilizado um banco de dados com informações sobre estabelecimentos fiscalizados pelas equipes da Secretaria d...

RESUMO O artigo avalia os efeitos da divisão de municípios sobre as eleições na composição nas câmaras legislativas municipais, onde buscamos identificar a hipótese de “gerrymandering”, ou seja, alteração da composição do poder nesses municípios envolvidos com o desmembramento. Nossos resultados sugerem (i) haver impacto positivo do desmembramento...

O objetivo deste trabalho é avaliar a eventual interação competitiva entre os estados brasileiros, a Guerra Fiscal de Portos (FWP) e verificar se a Resolução 13/2012, que reduziu a alíquota sobre bens importados nas vendas interestaduais, teve o impacto desejado. Usando dados mensais sobre os níveis de importação do estado no período de janeiro de...

Grants and dispersion of local education spending in Brazil. Regional Studies. Since several federations rely on a decentralized system of public education, understanding local responses to intergovernmental grants is a relevant issue in regional economics. This paper investigates whether different types of grants (block, categorical and matching)...

This paper explores the institutional change introduced by the public disclosure of an education development index (IDEB, Basic Education Development Index) in 2007 to identify the effect of education accountability on yardstick competition in educational spending among Brazilian municipalities. An exploratory analysis of the data shows a minor red...

We estimate the net fiscal benefit (NFB) and the fiscal effect of unconditional grants on wages for twenty-six Brazilian states in the period 2005 to 2009. In particular, we explore the analytical framework proposed in Albouy to investigate the efficiency and equity effects of unconditional intergovernmental grants in Brazil. This framework can be...

This article aims to estimate the elasticity of taxable income (ETI), taking into account the nature of transfers and their use as a redistribution package (involving cash and in-kind transfers) to households in Brazil. Our contributions are twofold. First, we provide a simple model with balanced-budget government that reveals the role played by ca...

This paper analyses the evolution of household income inequality in Brazil from 1977 and 2013 using Brazilian National Household Survey data at aggregated and regional levels. Four income shares quantiles are analyzed: Top 1%, Top 10%, Bottom 10% and Bottom 50%. The novelty of our study is to use time series techniques to understand the phenomenon...

We present a Hotelling-type linear economy model of sales taxation where the cost of enforcement rises with the distance from the tax authority. The existence of hard-to-tax (HTT) markets is endogenously determined by this enforcement cost. We show that social welfare may be maximized by keeping some markets untaxed even when it is still possible t...

This paper investigates whether a pro-poor tax policy follows yardstick competition in the value-added tax (VAT) base in Brazilian states. We explore an institutional arrangement that allows lower levels of government to set tax relief (tax cuts and exemptions) for food goods in a so-called basic basket food. Next, we examine the relationship betwe...

This article incorporates tax evasion and sales tax rebates to consumers into Ramsey’s optimal taxation problem. Consumers may act as tax enforcers by requesting sales receipts, forcing firms to remit taxes to the government. Consumer auditing is costly, and the government offers buyers a tax rebate. This policy modifies the traditional ‘Ramsey equ...

This paper investigates the effects of the municipality secession occurred in Brazil in the last decades after the Constitution of 1988 on the supply of publicly provided goods and social indicators of those municipalities. We consider the following publicly provided goods - Access to trash collector, access to sewer and electric services as well a...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the role played by the geographic distance between the poor and non‐poor in the local demand for income redistribution and, in particular, to provide an empirical test of the geographically limited altruism model proposed by Pauly, incorporating the possibility of participation costs associated wi...

The purpose of this paper is to estimate the efficiency of higher education institutions in Brazil with emphasis on its determinants, taking particularly into account the relative efficiency of public and private institutions on the application of their resources. The availability of scores in standardized tests for Brazilian universities helps a l...

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the impact of Programa Nota Fiscal Paulista on tax revenue collection by the state of São Paulo. We observe a positive and significant effect on tertiary tax collection between 5% and 10% when São Paulo is compared to the other states in Brazil. We do not find a robust effect of the Program neither on total...

The main purpose of this note is to estimate the tax burden of 12 commodities in Brazil. We collect data of tax rate changes on value added tax (VAT) and tax inclusive prices. Based on this data, econometric methodology is applied based on Carbonnier (2007) to the Brazilian market. Unbalanced panel data includes information about 7 commodities from...

This paper investigates the optimal general income tax and audit policies when poverty is considered a public bad in an economy with two types of individuals whose income may not be observed. Our results depend on whether poverty is measured in absolute or in relative terms. For a relative poverty measure, it is possible to characterize conditions...

Abstract Recent empirical work on tax incidence suggests that after-tax price responses are independent of the tax change direction. This paper investigates asymmetric price responses to ad-valorem tax changes in the Brazilian food market for 10 goods in 16 states during the period 1994–2008. Our results suggest that when tax rates increase, tax fu...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to characterize that the marginal social cost of public funds and to estimate the response of labor supply to these publicly provided goods, and simulate the marginal social cost of cash‐cum‐in‐kind transfers (MSCKT) for Brazil. Design/methodology/approach The paper provides a theoretical model based on Wildasi...

This paper has two purposes. First, to construct efficiency scores in tax collection for Brazilian municipalities in 2004, taking into consideration two outputs: amount of per capita local tax collected -tax revenue-and the size of local informal economy-tax base. This methodology eliminates the price-effect of tax collection. Second, using the rul...

This paper aims to test if there is a spatial interaction on municipal expenditures (health, education and investments) in electoral years. The test is performed using data from 1997 to 2008 as Lockwood & Migali (2009). Our results suggest that there is positive spatial interaction between municipalities belonging to the same microregion in health...

This paper examines the relationship between public employment and income redistribution in Brazilian municipalities. First, we use the requirements set forth by the Fiscal Responsibility Act as an instrument for public employment variation across municipalities. Second, our results suggest that local public employment increases income concentratio...

Este trabalho investiga o efeito dos tributos federais nas políticas tributárias estaduais (competição vertical) para cigarro e gasolina, levando em conta as políticas adotadas pelos estados vizinhos na deci-são tributária local (competição horizontal). Para estimar consistentemente os parâmetros da interação fiscal entre os governos estaduais e o...

Este artigo investiga o impacto do estigma sobre as decisões econômicas dos indivíduos beneficiados por algum programa de transferência federal. Estigma é definido aqui como a desutilidade resultante em participar de algum programa de transferência. Em particular, estima-se que o estigma afeta positivamente a procura por novos empregos e redução do...

This paper investigates the optimal general income tax and audit policies when poverty is a public bad and income is not observed in an economy with two types of individuals. Di¤erently from the traditional "non-distortion at the top" result of the optimal taxation literature, we …nd that the optimal marginal income tax rate on skilled individuals...

The effect of reelection intention on public health expenditures: An analysis based on reputation models. The political model of reputational-building argues that if the incumbent politician aspires to be reassigned, he/she must act in the voters' interest to obtain their approval and consequently their votes. Considering that voters are sensitive...

The political model of reputational-building argues that if the incumbent politician aspires to be reassigned, he/she must act in the voters' interest to obtain their approval and consequently their votes. Considering that voters are sensitive to public health expenditures, we check how reputational incentives shift municipal spending patterns in e...

This article attempts to apply and interpret the correspondent Identification Matrix test (White, 1982) for a Pareto type I distribution. One of the most cited datasets used by Pareto, England's income distribution in 1843 and in 1879, is used. Our results suggest that an alternative hypothesis, one of random coefficients cannot be accepted, i.e.,...

Este trabalho busca testar empiricamente a associação estatística entre taxa de câmbio real local e arrecadação dos municípios brasileiros para o período de 2004 a 2007. O trabalho apresenta evidências empíricas sobre a relação positiva, mas heterogênea entre a taxa cambial e o montante arrecadado de IPTU nos municípios do Brasil no período de 2004...

This paper investigates the causes of municipalities secession in Brazil. We develop a model where the median voter decides on the creation of new municipalities observing the trade-off between loss of scale on public production and increase in federal transfers to his/her municipality. Voters acquire more information from the decision undertaken b...

Labor churning is an important component of labor turnover in Brazil, which includes job reallocation between firms. The labor churning evolution in the nineties, at least for the industry sector in Sao Paulo, folows a very similar path for di erent groups of firms (divided by size or by subsectors), suggesting that changes in the macroeconomic env...

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the relative performance and efficiency of Brazilian states in the provision of basic and secondary education. In order to do so performance indicators are initially built using quantitative and qualitative variables. These indicators are then used as products in order to capture cross-states differences in...

The article tests an extended version of Meltzer and Richard's model where the redistributive policy of the government is made through in kind transfer. The median-voter of one region decides the size of the government of her region taking into account the expenditures made by neighbours' location. The theoretical model predicts that the poorer the...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the existence of skill differentiation between formal and informal labor markets. Design/methodology/approach First, a theoretical model is developed under the assumption that concealment of production is increasingly costly for informal firms. Second, using data on the Brazilian self‐employed econom...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to decompose the effects of democracy and risk of expropriation on economic volatility. Design/methodology/approach The authors follow Acemouglu et al. and use settler mortality in former colonies in the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries as an instrument of “risk of expropriation,” in addition to...

Este artigo avalia os efeitos das variáveis de escala na oferta de serviços públicos de saúde dos municípios paulistas, com o objetivo de investigar os possíveis efeitos do processo de descentralização dos serviços de saúde a partir da consolidação do Sistema Único de Saúde (SUS). Foram construídos indicadores de eficiência dos gastos municipais em...

This paper proposes the use of the optimal nonlinear tax formula to derive the social welfare function of policymakers. In particular, it uses PSID and PNAD for 1990 to estimate the implicit social welfare functions associated with income tax imposition for the USA and Brazil. Under assumptions on the household preferences, the estimations suggest...

Purpose This paper seeks to investigate the role of income‐inequality on the size of local government. Design/methodology/approach First, the paper extends the model proposed by Meltzer and Richard, allowing for spatial interaction in the redistributive in‐kind transfers from the local governments. Second, it estimates the determinants of the size...

This paper attempts to estimate the allocative efficiency for the cities of the state of Sao Paulo, using the model proposed by Brueckner (1982). In that model, under some conditions, the aggregate property value in a community that imposes property tax has an inverted U-shape function with respect to the public good. In other words, the model argu...

This paper assesses and tests the efficiency in tax collection in 3,359 Brazilian municipalities. First, applying a non-parametric methodology -Free Disposable Hull, we compute comparative efficiency scores for each municipality. In particular, given an individual amount of capital an, labor treated as inputs, we evaluate efficiency in producing tw...

This paper examines the recent decentralization of governance in Indonesia and its impact on local infrastructure provision. The decentralization of decisionmaking power to local jurisdictions in Indonesia may have improved the matching of public infrastructures provision with local preferences. However, decentralization has made local public infra...

This paper examines the role of cash transfers as a screening device when combined with in-kind transfers. It shows that linking in-kind to cash transfers makes first-best redistribution possible despite the government's inability to tell rich and poor individuals apart. Moreover, the maximal attainable welfare for the poor can be pushed beyond its...

Resumo: Este artigo analisa a relação entre emprego público e desigualdade de renda para os municípios Brasileiros. Em particular, desenvolve-se um modelo para mostrar que a política de criação de empregos públicos pode aumentar a concentração de renda nas cidades. Em seguida, a hipótese de que o emprego público verificado nas cidades brasileiras c...

This paper examines the role of cash transfers as a screening device when combined with in-kind transfers. It shows that linking in-kind to cash transfers makes first-best redistribution possible despite the government's inability to tell rich and poor individuals apart. Moreover, the maximal attainable welfare for the poor can be pushed beyond its...

This paper investigates labor supply response to tax rates changes taking into consideration cash-cum-in-kind transfers as a redistributive package. It demonstrates that under the standard assumptions: in-kind transfers and leisure are Hicks substitutes, leisure is normal, and in-kind transfer can be "topped up" - a marginal income tax cut unambigo...

This paper compares the power and size of both spatial one-directional and robust to local misspecification LM test using Monte Carlo techniques under different set ups. Confirming the results found in Anselin et al. (1996), under local misspecification the robust LM test improves its size and power of tests. However, under no misspecification, the...

This paper combines poverty considerations in the social welfare function and tax evasion into an optimal general income tax problem. It investigates the optimal audit and tax structures using a model with two types of individual, endogenous labor supply and a hybrid social welfare function that captures the pluralism of the objectives of a full co...

This paper aims to estimate whether there is a difference in terms of labor supply among beneficiaries of transfer programs in Brazil. In particular, we compare beneficiaries of unconditional versus conditional programs, that is, we test differences in labor supply responses of receivers of Renda Minima versus Bolsa-Escola beneficiaries. The result...

Este trabalho procurou estimar os efeitos das mudanças ocorridas no sistema de educação fundamental brasileiro com relação à descentralização sobre o desempenho do setor, sendo o conceito de descentralização entendido de modo mais amplo do que em trabalhos anteriores, incorporando tanto aspectos relativos à autonomia municipal de arrecadação e de g...

Este artigo investiga a relação entre estigma e as decisões econômicas dos indivíduos beneficiados por algum programa de transferência federal. Estigma é definido como a desutilidade resultante de se par-ticipar de algum programa de transferência. Em particular, estima-se que o estigma está negativamente associado ao desemprego dentro da família en...

Este trabalho examina a dívida pública interna, indexação financeira e ajuste de curto prazo das contas públicas. Um VAR é estimado de forma a captar a causalidade temporal de gastos do governo, impostos, indexação real e aumento de dívida. Asevidências indicam que para o período de 1965 a 1993, reduções na taxa real de indexação da dívida pública...