The purpose of this essay is to appraise alternative hypothesis about the origins of recent social revolt in Mexico. It shows that it is not clear that a severe rise in poverty preceded the origins of violent conflict but social polarisation. Therefore, government attempts to deactivate the economic factors that led to social unrest did not necessarily upgrade poverty reduction policies. The complexity of issues involved do not warrant simple results but the picture that emerges from the data shows a weak but steady economic recovery before the zapatista uprising. Several relative deprivation and polarisation indexes are calculated to appraise frustration and redistribution of power theories of rebellion. There was no uniform trend from frustration indicators but when relative deprivation is combined with economic polarisation and the resources of those with less income, the probability of organised revolt significantly increases before the Chiapas rebellion. It seems that the main economic thrust of civil violence was income polarisation, even for the case of the Ejército Popular Revolucionario. The evolution of poverty-reduction expenditure shows that after four years of targeted programs and a social rebellion the poorest states continued to suffer severe under-spending errors.
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Different economic studies have shown the importance of education in improving the quality of life of individuals. Thus, in the 90’s, the public education system was reformed to enhance the quality of public education in Brazil and motivate student interest. This paper participated in this discussion by suggesting an assessment of the impact that school infrastructure and family characteristics have on age-grade distortions in primary education. Probit and ordered probit models were used for public schools in urban areas in the states of Sao Paulo and Pernambuco, using databases from the demographic census and the school census and National Fund for School Development (FNDE) transfers for 2000. Interactions between family characteristic and school infrastructure variables were explored to determine the most effective ways to retain students and ensure student promotion. Simulations were also made to assess the impact of enhancing school quality versus improving the socioeconomic status of families on lagging students. Results showed that Sao Paulo students from families headed by less educated heads of household and/or low income families would benefit more from public policies oriented towards improving school infrastructure. Reaching low income children in Pernambuco would require investments in policies aimed at improving both family socioeconomic status and school infrastructure. In addition, improving family characteristics has a greater impact on age-grade distortion in both states, but these are long term policies. Even though their impact is lower, policies oriented towards improving school infrastructure would achieve more immediate results.
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It has been widely accepted that reforms on pension schemes have led to improvements in the financial viability of the systems. Nevertheless, at the same time it has been shown that fees charged by pension fund managers (PFM) are very high, implying high mark-ups for them and lower expected pensions for the participants. The presence of economies of scale has been suggested as one main reason for the high fees. In this paper we argue that previous studies that have found economies of scale in the case of Mexico were based on cost curves that were empirically not well specified. We estimate a semi parametric cost curve which allows us to conclude that if there exists economies of scale, minimum efficient scales are low, being reached by almost all PFM. The presence or not of economies of scale is highly important to surveillance authorities, since it can lead to different regulatory actions aiming at lowering fees.
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This paper estimates social security financial incentives for early retirement using contemporary techniques developed in economics, and compares these estimates to those estimated for developed countries. I find that implicit tax on continued work increases with age and amounts to over one-third of an individual potential earnings at age sixty-five. The pension replacement rate shows the degree of the generosity of the Brazilian pension system, on average pension benefits correspond to 60% of labor income. In general, I find that incentives inherent to the pension system situate Brazil in the bottom levelof developed countries. The replacement rates, implicit tax on work and pension accrual rates in Brazil are similar to the levels observed in the US and Canada.
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