Immigration and the origins of regional inequality: Government-sponsored European migration to Southern Brazil before World War I

This paper studies the long-term consequences of the government-sponsored programs of European immigration to Southern Brazil before the Great War. We find that the municipalities closer to the original sites of nineteenth century government sponsored settlements (colônias) have higher per capita income, less poverty and dependence on Bolsa Família cash transfers, better health and education outcomes; and for the areas close to German colonies, also less inequality of income and educational outcomes than otherwise. Since that is a reduced form relationship, we then attempt to identify the relative importance of more egalitarian landholdings and higher initial human capital in determining those outcomes. Our findings are suggestive that more egalitarian land distribution played a more important role than higher initial human capital in achieving the good outcomes associated with closeness to a colônia.Brazil; Migration; Rio Grande do Sul; German migration; Italian migration; New World; Land distribution; Human capital; Economic history of Latin America

Fronteira de desigualdade regional: Brasil (1872-2000)

Milanovic, Lindert and Williamson (2007) introduced the concept of the inequality possibility frontier. Their starting point is that very poor societies will never display high Gini indexes of personal distribution of income because there is very little surplus to be appropriated by the upper classes of these societies. The inequality possibility frontier is the maximum level of inequality possible at each level of income. This paper extends the concept to cover regional cases. Countries with populations close to subsistence level inevitably display low regional inequality of income per capita. Rising levels of wealth imply higher attainable degrees of regional inequality. The concepts of regional inequality frontier and regional inequality ratio are presented in this paper, and are illustrated by the case of Brazil between 1872 and 2000

Reconstructing Fourier's law from disorder in quantum wires

The theory of open quantum systems is used to study the local temperature and heat currents in metallic nanowires connected to leads at different temperatures. We show that for ballistic wires the local temperature is almost uniform along the wire and Fourier's law is invalid. By gradually increasing disorder, a uniform temperature gradient ensues inside the wire and the thermal current linearly relates to this local temperature gradient, in agreement with Fourier's law. Finally, we demonstrate that while disorder is responsible for the onset of Fourier's law, the non-equilibrium energy distribution function is determined solely by the heat baths

Quantum and classical echoes in scattering systems described by simple Smale horseshoes

We explore the quantum scattering of systems classically described by binary and other low order Smale horseshoes, in a stage of development where the stable island associated with the inner periodic orbit is large, but chaos around this island is well developed. For short incoming pulses we find periodic echoes modulating an exponential decay over many periods. The period is directly related to the development stage of the horseshoe. We exemplify our studies with a one-dimensional system periodically kicked in time and we mention possible experiments.Comment: 7 pages with 6 reduced quality figures! Please contact the authors ([email protected]) for an original good quality pre-prin

Third quantization: a general method to solve master equations for quadratic open Fermi systems

The Lindblad master equation for an arbitrary quadratic system of n fermions is solved explicitly in terms of diagonalization of a 4n x 4n matrix, provided that all Lindblad bath operators are linear in the fermionic variables. The method is applied to the explicit construction of non-equilibrium steady states and the calculation of asymptotic relaxation rates in the far from equilibrium problem of heat and spin transport in a nearest neighbor Heisenberg XY spin 1/2 chain in a transverse magnetic field.Comment: 24 pages, with 8 eps figures - few minor corrections to the published version, e.g. anti-symmetrizing the matrix given by eq. (27

Optimal estimates of the diffusion coefficient of a single Brownian trajectory

Modern developments in microscopy and image processing are revolutionizing areas of physics, chemistry and biology as nanoscale objects can be tracked with unprecedented accuracy. The goal of single particle tracking is to determine the interaction between the particle and its environment. The price paid for having a direct visualization of a single particle is a consequent lack of statistics. Here we address the optimal way of extracting diffusion constants from single trajectories for pure Brownian motion. It is shown that the maximum likelihood estimator is much more efficient than the commonly used least squares estimate. Furthermore we investigate the effect of disorder on the distribution of estimated diffusion constants and show that it increases the probability of observing estimates much smaller than the true (average) value.Comment: 8 pages, 5 figure

High order non-unitary split-step decomposition of unitary operators

We propose a high order numerical decomposition of exponentials of hermitean operators in terms of a product of exponentials of simple terms, following an idea which has been pioneered by M. Suzuki, however implementing it for complex coefficients. We outline a convenient fourth order formula which can be written compactly for arbitrary number of noncommuting terms in the Hamiltonian and which is superiour to the optimal formula with real coefficients, both in complexity and accuracy. We show asymptotic stability of our method for sufficiently small time step and demonstrate its efficiency and accuracy in different numerical models.Comment: 10 pages, 4 figures (5 eps files) Submitted to J. of Phys. A: Math. Ge

Nonequilibrium dynamics of a stochastic model of anomalous heat transport

We study the dynamics of covariances in a chain of harmonic oscillators with conservative noise in contact with two stochastic Langevin heat baths. The noise amounts to random collisions between nearest-neighbour oscillators that exchange their momenta. In a recent paper, [S Lepri et al. J. Phys. A: Math. Theor. 42 (2009) 025001], we have studied the stationary state of this system with fixed boundary conditions, finding analytical exact expressions for the temperature profile and the heat current in the thermodynamic (continuum) limit. In this paper we extend the analysis to the evolution of the covariance matrix and to generic boundary conditions. Our main purpose is to construct a hydrodynamic description of the relaxation to the stationary state, starting from the exact equations governing the evolution of the correlation matrix. We identify and adiabatically eliminate the fast variables, arriving at a continuity equation for the temperature profile T(y,t), complemented by an ordinary equation that accounts for the evolution in the bulk. Altogether, we find that the evolution of T(y,t) is the result of fractional diffusion.Comment: Submitted to Journal of Physics A, Mathematical and Theoretica

SEIS CENTÍMETROS: UMA ANALÍSE ANTROPOMÉTRICA DA POF 2002- 2003

This paper analyzes the heights of the Brazilian people using anthropometric and economic data from the Pesquisa de Orçamentos Familiares (POF) 2002-2003. The literature suggests that height is a good proxy of the physical life conditions of the populations. The tabulations of POF microdata indicate that the difference among the heights of 21 and 65-year-old men is circa 6 centimeters. The same value, by chance, represents the difference on the stature of the poorest and richest quintiles. There are also steady regional differences; in the North and Northeast, the heights are about 2 centimeters lower than the national average, for any cohort. Regression analyses show that proxy variables related to life conditions during body growth and regional dummies were statistically significant causes of the variation on the height of individuals. In contrast, color, urban/rural and inequality variables were not significant. The results replicate what the historiography on life conditions and stature says: the social environment has a significant impact on the average height of the populations.

Uma Análise Espacial do Crescimento Econômico do Rio Grande do Sul (1939-2001)

This work applies spatial econometrics to analyze the economic growth of Rio Grande do Sul 58 statistical comparable areas between 1939 and 2001. Moran-I tests suggest that rich areas had rich neighbors, and poor ones were agglomerated on poor neighborhoods. Exploratory spatial data analysis (ESDA) indicates that high grown clusters are located on the Serra region and the low ones on the Campanha region. The standard model indicates absolute ?-convergence, but it also shows spatial autocorrelation. In order to deal with it, spatial lag and error models were tested. Both performed better than the standard model, and the spatial error seems to be the best option. Tests of structural break indicate that the Campanha region, the south of the state, has a different spatial regime than the rest of the state. Again, spatial error and lag models are appropriate; and the former has the best fittingEconometria Espacial, Convergência, ESDA