The production and usage of biofuels has increased worldwide, seeking goals of energy security, low-carbon energy and rural development.

The expansion of sugarcane growing in Brazil, spurred particularly by increased demand for ethanol, has triggered the need to evaluate the economic, social, and environmental impacts of this process, both on the country as a whole and on the growing regions. Even though the balance of costs and benefits is positive from an overall standpoint, this may not be so in specific producing regions, due to negative externalities. The objective of this paper is to estimate the effect of growing sugarcane on the human development index (HDI) and its sub-indices in cane producing regions. In the literature on matching effects, this is interpreted as the effect of the treatment on the treated. Location effects are controlled by spatial econometric techniques, giving rise to the spatial propensity score matching model. The authors analyze 424 minimum comparable areas (MCAs) in the treatment group, compared with 907 MCAs in the control group. The results suggest that the presence of sugarcane growing in these areas is not relevant to determine their social conditions, whether for better or worse. It is thus likely that public policies, especially those focused directly on improving education, health, and income generation/distribution, have much more noticeable effects on the municipal HDI.

Resumo O objetivo deste artigo é analisar empiricamente os impactos da adoção do sistema de metas inflacionárias para a inflação e crescimento real do produto, diferenciando os impactos entre países desenvolvidos (PD) e em desenvolvimento (PED (1.2% and 0.1%, respectively). One possible explanation is that for the PED the decrease in the output growth may be related to the difficulty they face in building their credibility, since they have to commit to more restrictive policies and a strict design for the regime.

O presente estudo avaliou a existência de uma Curva Ambiental de Kuznets (CAK) para o caso dos déficits municipais de acesso a serviços de saneamento ambiental, que podem ser considerados como medidas indiretas de degradação ambiental. Os resultados obtidos sinalizam, de uma maneira geral, a existência de uma relação entre os déficits de acesso e o desenvolvimento econômico no formato de um "N" e não no tradicional formato de um "U invertido" da CAK. Portanto, para o caso específico dos serviços de saneamento ambiental nos municípios brasileiros, a hipótese de que o desenvolvimento econômico seria a melhor solução para a preservação ambiental não é verdadeira, uma vez que, ao longo do tempo, o desenvolvimento econômico voltaria a gerar degradação ambiental.

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work is licensed under a Creative Commons IGO 3.0 AttributionNonCommercial-NoDerivatives (CC-IGO BY-NC-ND 3.0 IGO) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/igo/ legalcode) and may be reproduced with attribution to the IDB and for any non-commercial purpose. No derivative work is allowed.Any dispute related to the use of the works of the IDB that cannot be settled amicably shall be submitted to arbitration pursuant to the UNCITRAL rules. The use of the IDB's name for any purpose other than for attribution, and the use of IDB's logo shall be subject to a separate written license agreement between the IDB and the user and is not authorized as part of this CC-IGO license.Note that link provided above includes additional terms and conditions of the license. This paper shows that exchange rate depreciation has a negative effect on the balance sheet of Brazilian companies with foreign indebtedness; this effect stems mainly from the negative correlation between the exchange rate and international commodity prices. While the face value of liabilities increased in proportion to the exchange rate during the period studied, revenues from exporting companies did not increase in the same proportion, since most exporting companies in Brazil are commodity producers. Therefore, the hedge expected by exporting companies' receivables is less effective than expected. The paper also finds a negative relationship between debt by BNDES and the foreign currency debt; moreover, only total assets and total liabilities have significant effects on accessing BNDES debt. Brazil's high dependence on the production and export of commodities affects domestic companies' growth of domestic companies, suggesting that the correlation effect between exchange rate and international commodity prices must be considered when investigating companies' competitiveness. JEL classifications: F34, G10, G15

ResumoA mensuração do efeito das variações cambiais para os preços é o objetivo da literatura de repasse cambial, sendo este tema de interesse tanto acadêmico quanto dos formuladores de política econômica. Este trabalho produz estimativas do repasse cambial para os preços de importação e para os preços no atacado da produção dos diferentes setores da indústria de transformação brasileira em um contexto de equações simultâneas baseado em uma amostra para o período de 1999 a 2012. Os resultados aqui obtidos indicam a superioridade da estimação em sistema, demonstrada por meio de sua adequação à teoria, bem como pelos valores obtidos. O grau de repasse cambial médio aos preços de importação foi de 0,633, enquanto o grau de repasse cambial aos preços ao atacado estimado foi de 0,181. Os resultados setoriais demonstram também que os setores com maior repasse cambial são aqueles produtores de bens de capital e de bens intermediários.Palavras-chave: Taxa de câmbio; Repasse cambial; Preços industriais; Preços de importação; Cointegração. Abstract Exchange rate pass-through in the Brazilian manufacturing industryThe objective of the literature on exchange rate pass-through is to measure the effect that the changes in the exchange rate have on prices. This topic is in the interest of both academics and policy makers. This paper produces estimates of exchange rate pass-through for import and wholesale prices of the different sectors of the Brazilian manufacturing industry during the period of 1999 to 2012. The reported results indicate the superiority of estimation in the system, demonstrated by its suitability to the theory, as well as the obtained values. The average level of import prices to exchange rate pass through was 0.633, while for the wholesale prices the estimated exchange rate pass through was 0.181.The sectoral results also demonstrate that the sectors with higher pass-through are producers of capital goods and intermediate goods sectors.

O trabalho procura discutir as dificuldades de financiamento das microempresas dentro da lógica do sistema financeiro tradicional e como o microcrédito pode resolver este problema. O primeiro ponto do trabalho é mostrar por que as microempresas são excluídas dos financiamentos tradicionais na presença de informações assimétricas. Em seguida, apresenta-se a experiência do Grameen Bank para mostrar como arranjos contratuais específicos podem viabilizar o financiamento de pequenos empreendimentos. E, ao final, apresenta-se a experiência brasileira com microcrédito, destacando-se o PROGER (Programa de Geração de Emprego e Renda) e as primeiras instituições de microcrédito.