March 27

Motivating Politicians

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Motivating Politicians: The Impacts of Monetary Incentives on Quality and Performance
Source: Institute for the Study of Labor

Recent studies have emphasized the importance of the quality of politicians for good government and consequently economic performance. But if the quality of leadership matters, then understanding what motivates individuals to become politicians and perform competently in office becomes a central question. In this paper, we examine whether higher wages attract better quality politicians and improve political performance using exogenous variation in the salaries’ of local legislators across Brazil’s municipal governments. The analysis exploits discontinuities in wages across municipalities induced by a constitutional amendment defining caps on the salary of local legislatures according to municipal population. Our main findings show that increases in salaries not only attracts more candidates, but more educated ones. Elected officials are in turn more educated and stay in office longer. Higher salaries also increase legislative productivity as measured by the number of bills submitted and approved, and the provision of public goods.

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February 29

Financing Energy Efficiency: China, India, And Brazil. World Bank

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Financing Energy Efficiency: Lessons from Brazil, China, India, and Beyond, is a new book recently released by the World Bank. The book focuses on China, India, and Brazil as three of the globe's top 10 energy consumers. The three countries hold 40 percent of the world's population and account for well over half of all energy demand by developing countries. By 2030, they'll be responsible for 42 percent of growth in energy demand worldwide. The book draws extensively on the results of a multiyear, global technical assistance effort known as the Three Country Energy Efficiency Project, a joint initiative of the World Bank, the UN Environment Programme's Denmark-based Risoe Centre (URC), and partners in Brazil, China, and India. Read more about the publication, including the press release from the website. Permanent Link: Financing Energy Efficiency
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November 06

Impact Of Globalisation On Industrial Relations: EU States, Australia, Brazil, China, India, Japan, South Africa And The US

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Impact of globalisation on industrial relations in the EU and other major economies
Source: Eurofound

This report looks at industrial relations systems across 25 EU Member States and seven global economies: Australia, Brazil, China, India, Japan, South Africa and the US. It explores the most significant effects of globalisation, including labour market flexibilisation, increasing labour migration, the rise of atypical employment forms, as well as changes in work content and working conditions. Through an analysis of the various components of industrial relations systems (actors, processes, outcomes and impact), it tries to identify which type of social model may survive in terms of global competition.

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