Public-private partnerships (PPPs) were established in Brazil at the beginning of this century, following a global trend of using these partnerships to stimulate investment in infrastructures, particularly in a framework of restrictive budgetary and fiscal conditions. Despite their growing importance and the expectation of an expanding role in the future, not much is known about the actual facts on the ground. The objective of this paper is to be a first step in the direction of filling this information gap by providing important stylized facts about the universe of PPPs in Brazil: the quantitative evolution of PPP adoptions; the characterization of the geographical distribution of PPPs by government level (federal, state, district, and municipal); the characterization of the PPP intervention areas, including the total value of contracts and the modalities of PPP concession (sponsored and administrative). This objective is rendered possible by the development of a new database that covers the entire process of PPP contracting from 2005 to 2022, including the opening of public consultation procedures, the publication of the official notice, and the signing of contracts, as well as multiple thematic, financial, jurisdictional, and regional indicators. In turn, we see the establishment of these stylized facts as a necessary first step in the direction of understanding the factors that may determine or condition their adoption. In general, having a clear picture of the universe of the PPPs in Brazil is fundamental as their use and their role are expected to significantly increase in the future as the country pursues a path of improved economic activity and well-being of the population.

Catastrophes, like earthquakes, bring sudden and severe damage, causing fatalities, injuries, and property loss. This often triggers a rapid increase in insurance claims. These claims can encompass various types, such as life insurance claims for deaths, health insurance claims for injuries, and general insurance claims for property damage. For insurers offering multiple types of coverage, this surge in claims can pose a risk of financial losses or bankruptcy. One option for insurers is to transfer some of these risks to reinsurance companies. Reinsurance companies will assess the potential losses due to a catastrophe event, then issue catastrophe reinsurance contracts to insurance companies. This study aims to construct a valuation model for catastrophe reinsurance contracts that can cover claim losses arising from two types of insurance products. Valuation in this study is done using the Fundamental Theorem of Asset Pricing, which is the expected present value of the number of claims that occur during the reinsurance coverage period. The number of catastrophe events during the reinsurance coverage period is assumed to follow a Poisson process. Each impact of a catastrophe event, such as the number of fatalities and injuries that cause claims, is represented as random variables, and modeled using Peaks Over Threshold (POT). This study uses Clayton, Gumbel, and Frank copulas to describe various dependence characteristics between random variables. The parameters of the POT model and copula are estimated using Inference Functions for Margins method. After estimating the model parameters, Monte Carlo simulations are performed to obtain numerical solutions for the expected value of catastrophe reinsurance based on the Fundamental Theorem of Asset Pricing. The expected reinsurance value based on Monte Carlo simulations using Indonesian earthquake data from 1979–2021 is Rp 10,296,819,838.

This paper provides a unique empirical analysis of the effects of political factors on the adoption of PPP contracts in Brazil. As such, it innovates along two different lines: first, political factors behind the adoption of PPPs have been largely ignored in the vast body of empirical literature, and second, there is scant work done on the motives of any kind behind the adoption of PPPs in Brazil. Various economic and financial reasons have been evoked to justify the use of PPPs in general. These include the goal of promoting socio-economic development in a tight public budgetary framework or of improving the quality of public services through the use of economically efficient and cost-effective mechanisms. Any possible underlying political motives, however, have been overlooked in the PPP research. And yet, there is abundant literature suggesting a link between the adoption of PPPs and the ideology of the governing body or the political cycles associated with elections. This study examines the impact of ideological commitment and opportunistic political behavior on the process of PPP contracting in Brazil, including the stages of public consultation, the publication of tender, and the signature of the contract, using federative-level data for the period between 2005 and 2022. Consistent with the outstanding literature, the two hypotheses are tested: first, conservative parties tend to celebrate more PPP contracts than left-leaning parties, and second, the electoral calendar has a significant effect in the process, allowing for opportunistic behaviors. Empirical results suggest that there is little evidence for the relevance of ideological leanings in the process of adopting PPPs in Brazil. Additionally, regardless of ideology, parties significantly choose to enter PPPs at specific points in the electoral cycle, suggesting decisions are influenced by political considerations and electoral strategy rather than by purely financial or ideological considerations. This may pose severe constraints on the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of the contracts, negatively impacting public governance and leading to protracted costs for taxpayers.

The author puts forward the idea that decentralized finance doesn’t act without managerial influence. The management moves from the external circuit to the internal one, there occurs self-ruling and “self-regulation” of the financial system. This indicates the appearance of a new type of financial intermediation—a cyber-social one. The potential of using decentralized finance in post-Soviet countries are formulated the following: freeing up the time of transaction participants due to the autonomy of transactions; a superior degree of information security compared to traditional forms of financial intermediation; financial intermediation cost saving, freeing up human resources; reduction in the speed of transactions; increasing accuracy in contractual relations due to the elimination of the human factor influence; stimulating the development of new business areas expands the competitive environment; information safety due to the constant creation of a large number of backup copies. At the same time, the author identified and substantiated the risks associated with decentralized financial flows, which may have an impact on the well-being of the population of post-Soviet countries. The purpose of this study is to determine the prospects for applying decentralized finance as a growth factor in the well-being of the population in post-Soviet countries.

This study examines the impact of state highway construction contracts on state spending efficiency controlling for production structure, service demands, and situational factors. The theoretical argument is that because highway construction projects are relatively large in scale, complex, and can be monitored through objective performance measurement, state highway construction programs may save government production costs through contracts. Contracting helps highway producers achieve efficiency by optimizing production size based on workload and task complexity. The unit of analysis is 48 state governments’ highway construction contracts from 1998 to 2008. Through a two-stage analysis method including a Total Function Productivity (TFP) index and system dynamic panel data analysis, the results suggest that highway construction contracts enhance state highway spending efficiency, especially for large-scale construction projects.