Changing social contracts: Beliefs and dissipative inclusion in Brazil

Abstract

This paper originated as a paper presented at a Festschrift in honor of Thrainn Eggertsson in April 2012. The work of Eggertsson (2005) on the role of beliefs influencing social models and social equilibrium inspired our thoughts on social contracts with respect to inequality and redistribution. For comments we thank participants at the conference, Andy Baker and an anonymous referee. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research. NBER working papers are circulated for discussion and comment purposes. They have not been peerreviewed or been subject to the review by the NBER Board of Directors that accompanies official NBER publications.

How judges think in the Brazilian Supreme Court: Estimating ideal points and identifying dimensions

“…Our analysis indicates instead that the first and most important dimension captures disagreements between the Justices over laws that are in the Executive's direct interest, especially when related to economic issues. As the data covers a period in which Brazil underwent a highly transformative process of institutional strengthening and economic reform (Alston et al, 2013), in which the Court played an active role as a political actor, it is an important finding that this dimension has been the major guiding principle. Similarly, given that the estimated ideal points on this dimension capture the Justices' preferences on federal economic policy they can be used by other researchers to conduct analyses or test hypotheses where the Supreme Court Justices' preferences are relevant.…”