https://repositorio.ufpb.br/jspui/handle/tede/4453 PPGE 2026-11-13T01:35:20Z https://repositorio.ufpb.br/jspui/handle/123456789/39748 Título: Ensaios sobre efeitos macroeconômicos de choques tecnológicos e monetários no Brasil Autor(es): Santos, Eliana Silva Orientador: Aragón, Edilean Kleber da Silva Bejarano Abstract: The main objective of this thesis is to study the macroeconomic effects of technological and monetary shocks in Brazil using an approach based on Structural Vector Autoregressive Models (SVAR) with an internal instrument, combining the moving-block bootstrap and bootstrap-afterbootstrap methods for bias correction. To this end, the work is divided into three essays. The first essay investigates the effects of technological news shocks on macroeconomic variables. To achieve this goal, we examine information contained in patent applications to construct instruments aimed at identifying news shocks about technological innovation, relaxing identification assumptions traditionally used in the literature. The results show that a positive news shock in patent filings generates a productivity peak in the short and medium run, accompanied by increases in investment and consumption, although without statistical significance at longer horizons. Furthermore, the shock accounts for an important share of macroeconomic fluctuations at business-cycle frequencies. The second essay analyzes the effects of monetary policy shocks on innovation and other macroeconomic indicators. The results indicate that a monetary policy shock reduces patent-filing rates over the medium run. It also leads to a sustained decline in intellectual property (IP) expenditures in the medium and long run, revealing the procyclical nature of IP spending and suggesting a relevant channel for long-term productivity fluctuations. The contributions of monetary shocks to the fluctuations in the model variables proved more modest for the sample covering the period of severe economic conditions. In the third and final essay, we use proxies for monetary policy shocks obtained through the narrative approach to assess the effects of these shocks on aggregate economic variables. We test the robustness of the results by using alternative instruments derived from hierarchical approaches and high-frequency identification. The findings indicate that a contractionary monetary policy shock leads to a decline in labor productivity and output, with magnitudes and durations that depend on the number of lags in the VAR, the block sizes in the moving-block bootstrap and the internal instrument used, along with a reduction in the general price level and an increase in the unemployment rate. Editor: Universidade Federal da Paraíba Tipo: Tese 2026-02-11T00:00:00Z https://repositorio.ufpb.br/jspui/handle/123456789/39717 Título: Ensaios em Economia da Educação Autor(es): Sousa, Jakcney Luan Azevedo de Orientador: Barbosa, Antonio Vinícius Barros Abstract: This dissertation comprises two independent essays in applied microeconomics within the field of economics of education. The first essay investigates the role of female peers in shaping women’s educational outcomes and teaching career trajectories in heavily male-dominated graduate programs. Using administrative data on the universe of students entering academic master’s programs in mathematics and statistics at Brazilian public universities, the study exploits quasi-random variation in cohort gender composition within programs. The results show that women in cohorts with no female peers face substantial disadvantages relative to men in degree completion, on-time completion, and dropout, and that a higher share of female peers improves all three outcomes, with no effect on men. The effect is nonlinear, concentrated in cohorts with more than 41% women, a pattern consistent with the critical mass hypothesis. Moreover, the effect is particularly pronounced in academically more demanding programs and arises only in mathematics and statistics, the sole STEM subfield in which women still complete their degrees at lower rates and drop out at higher rates than men. There is no evidence that academic scholarships or female participation in advising explain these results. Finally, cohort gender composition does not differentially affect women’s entry into or progression through teaching careers after graduation. The second essay investigates the impact of broadband internet adoption on educational outcomes in Brazilian rural public schools. Exploiting the regulatory obligations of the 2012 4G spectrum auction, which mandated the free connection of rural schools under staggered deadlines, the effects are estimated on a panel of schools from 2011 to 2018 using the multiple-period difference-in-differences estimator of Callaway e Sant’Anna (2021). The results reveal that the benefits of connectivity are concentrated in the final grades of fundamental education (grades 6–9): broadband reduces the failure rate by 0.68 percentage points and raises the approval rate by 0.61 percentage points, with additional gains in SAEB mathematics scores and in the IDEB index. Effects also grow with length of exposure, and a dose–response pattern in connection quality is found. Finally, the improvement in teacher qualification adequacy in the final grades emerges as a plausible channel for these results. Taken together, the essays offer insights for the design of educational policy on two fronts: in graduate education, policies aimed at improving gender balance in mathematics-related fields and at promoting female role models in academia, with potential spillover effects on gender gaps in mathematics at earlier educational stages; in basic education, connectivity policies that consider not only access but also the quality of the installed infrastructure, as an instrument for reducing digital exclusion and educational inequalities between rural and urban areas. Editor: Universidade Federal da Paraíba Tipo: Tese 2026-07-24T00:00:00Z https://repositorio.ufpb.br/jspui/handle/123456789/39569 Título: Os efeitos da transferência de renda e da política de cotas no mercado de trabalho durante a COVID-19 Autor(es): Silva, Ricardo Vieira Orientador: Almeida, Aléssio Tony Cavalcanti de Abstract: This dissertation examines, in three empirical chapters, how cash transfer programs (CTPs) and affirmative action policies affected the labor market and socioeconomic vulnerability during the COVID-19 pandemic. To carry out these analyses, three matching methods were employed: Propensity Score Matching (PSM), Mahalanobis Distance Matching (MDM), and entropy balancing. The first chapter evaluates the impact of the Emergency Aid Program (Programa Auxílio Emergencial – PAE) on the Brazilian labor market. The results suggest that the PAE generated heterogeneous effects on the labor market. Negative effects are observed on formal employment, while positive effects are found in the informal sector, indicating a process of occupational reallocation, possibly associated with the incentives embedded in the program’s targeting rules. Negative effects on labor supply are also identified, consistent with the presence of an income effect. In addition, consistent evidence was found of labor market scarring effects and stigma effects, as beneficiaries showed a higher probability of searching for work and a lower probability of reporting unwillingness to work. The second chapter evaluates the effects of the Asignación Familiar – Plan de Equidad (AFAM-PE) on the Uruguayan labor market. In contrast to the results of the first chapter, the estimates indicate that AFAM-PE produced modest effects on the labor market. No robust evidence was found of occupational reallocation, income effects, scarring effects, or stigma effects among program beneficiaries. The third chapter evaluates the effects of the quota policy of the Federal University of Paraíba (UFPB) on the probability of demanding Emergency Aid during the COVID-19 pandemic. The evidence indicates the absence of statistically significant effects of the quota policy on the probability of demanding Emergency Aid. Considering the sample limitations of the study, these results suggest that, after completing higher education, quota and non-quota graduates displayed similar patterns of economic vulnerability, at least with regard to the need for emergency support. Taken together, this dissertation shows that social protection policies may operate in complementary ways. While cash transfer programs respond directly to short-term needs and generate relevant, though ambiguous, effects on the labor market, inclusive educational policies tend to operate primarily over longer horizons, helping to reduce structural inequalities and increasing the capacity of social groups to cope with adverse economic shocks without having to rely on assistance mechanisms. Editor: Universidade Federal da Paraíba Tipo: Tese 2026-02-09T00:00:00Z https://repositorio.ufpb.br/jspui/handle/123456789/39568 Título: Ensaios em setor público : desempenho econômico e corrupção Autor(es): Souza, Adeilson Elias de Orientador: Araujo, Jevuks Matheus de Abstract: The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of corruption on economic performance in a sample of 40 European countries over the period 2001 to 2021. To this end, an exploratory spatial data analysis (AEDE) was conducted and subsequently estimated the dynamic economic performance model from the GMM estimation method without spatial effects and the dynamic Spatial Durbin Error Model (SDEM). The results pointed out a robust direct and indirect spatial relationship between corruption and GDP per capita of the countries in Europe, indicating that besides corruption itself, being neighbor to corrupt countries also induces the reduction of GDP per capita of the countries in Europe. In this sense, there is a need for coordinated anti-corruption policies among the countries, aiming to increase their levels of per capita income. The present study aims to analyze the relationship between corruption and economic performance in the 26 federative units of Brazil, excluding the Federal District, during the period from 2009 to 2018. To this end, a factor analysis using principal components was employed to create the corruption index, as proposed by Carraro et al. (2015). Dynamic spatial panel data models were also evaluated, using the GMM method in the absence of spatial dependence and the SDEM model, following the procedure indicated by LeSage (2014). The results revealed negative direct and indirect effects between corruption and economic performance, meaning that the values of these variables are also influenced by neighboring units. Therefore, to achieve better economic performance, Brazilian states would need the implementation of collective anti-corruption policies. Editor: Universidade Federal da Paraíba Tipo: Tese 2026-02-24T00:00:00Z