Current Research Projects
2016 – Current
Evaluation, Administration and Territorial Planning of Mining Activities
Description: Mining activities are known to have a dual characteristic: on the one hand they promote income, investment and exports in very specific spaces where scarce natural resources are found. However, on the other hand, these activities are marked by intensive use of natural resources, large generation of waste and high negative externalities (pollution). In addition, when exploiting resources that are exhaustible, often sensitive to fluctuations in income and prices, mining activities tend to generate effects on the spaces where they are located, creating dependency and local vulnerability. In developing countries, these spaces still suffer from the absence of public policies and development plans. These might not only allow the diversification of the local economy, reducing its vulnerability, but it may also enable the region in becoming resilient in the face of several shocks. This is especially true for situations of technological disasters that interrupt local activities. The objective of this research project is to discuss local development policies, especially those specific to mining regions, and to propose plans that can mitigate vulnerability and dependence on these spaces, offering possible alternatives for local development. Preliminary conclusions indicate that a development plan for mining activity spaces must have a bottom-up structure, which requires a) the State as an inducer, promoting local diversification and conversion policies; and b) the private sector, as a facilitator of the ventures. However, it is essential that the consultation and organization for a development plan acts under the imperative of c) local demands, creating local capacities and promoting the already existing productive and social interactions.
Coordinators: Anderson Cavalcante and Bernardo Campolina (Cedeplar / UFMG)
2014 – Current
Financial Education
Description: This research project aims to critically discuss conventional proposals for financial capability and education, being carried out in Brazil and several other countries. The different types of proposal usually give excessive importance to financial education activities, all under the impression that the transfer of knowledge and information is the best way to promote literacy, training and financial well-being of citizens. Alternatively, this research project presents an institutionalist approach, composed of distinct theoretical lines (such as anthropology, psychology and economics), but complementary. According to this approach, the current proposals aligned with the conventional methodology are not only insufficient, but inadequate, since: i) they cannot be primarily focused on educational actions in an environment that offers an insufficient condition for financial inclusion, with low freedom of choice; ii) it is imperative to contextualize the scenario in which financial decisions are made, especially regarding the conditions of financial regulation and financial consumer protection; iii) a treatment that does not deal with concepts such as the conflict of interest and fundamental uncertainty can promote risky behavior, exposing citizens to a risk of excessive and naive optimism. This research project aims to provide more adequate instruments for the treatment of financial education.
Coordinator: Fernando Pereira (UNIFAL) and Anderson Cavalcante (Cedeplar / UFMG)
2006 – Current
LEMTe – Lab for Studies on Money and Territory [Laboratório de Estudos sobre Moeda e Território]
Description: The Lab for Studies on Money and Territory (LEMTe) aims to study the relationship between money, financial system and regional impacts of monetary relations. Money is understood here more broadly, comprising not only its unit of value concept, but also the relations acrruing from monetary policy and financial system configurations. LEMTe is located at the Center for Development and Regional Planning (CEDEPLAR/UFMG) and seeks to expand the range of research in regional economics that is characteristic of this center.
Coordinators: Marco Aurélio Crocco Afonso and Anderson Cavalcante (Cedeplar / UFMG)
Completed Research Projects
2016 – 2018
Wealth through Sharing (Riquezas Compartilhadas)
Description: Wealth Through Sharing aims to develop a territorial diagnosis of various forms of wealth in NPDC and MG, as well as an analysis of the means of sharing these forms of wealth within the populations of these territories. It is based on a research project shared between teams from French and Brazilian universities and on a comparative territorial approach. The project is thus inherently cooperative at its foundation, but also in its objectives, aiming to encourage the exchange of wealth between the two territories. The project is also intended as a tool for territorial development, because it will specify regional disparities of wealth, in its creation and redistribution, and because it may contribute to the development of regional spaces by informing the thought process and debates on public policy for human development and reduction of inequalities, but also in terms of territorial planning.
Coordinators: Pauline Bosredon (Nord-Pas du Calais) and Alexandre Magno Alves Diniz (PUC-MG)
Funding: Nord-Pas du Calais / Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de Minas Gerais (FAPEMIG)
2015 – 2019
(Jean Monet Module) Theory and Policy in the formation of the European Union: a model for economic integration?
Description: The aim of this project is twofold. First, it intends to foster the analysis of the historical circumstances surrounding the birth of the European Union, focusing in particular on the interplay between theories and concepts of regional integration, on one hand, and the political, institutional, and economic forces that underpinned the process, on the other. Secondly, it will use this knowledge in a comparative analysis of other recent experiences of integration, attempting to illuminate how strategies that share the same rationale can lead to widely diverging results due to the different socio-institutional contexts in which they are applied, thus alerting to the dangers of a hasty adoption of imported models. Building on teaching and research activities that are already in place within the Bachelor Program in International Economic Relations offered by the Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG), our aim is to broaden the reach of the courses offered, making them available to the whole student population of the university (approximately 50,000 students). At the same time, we intend to provide greater thematic coherence to the courses by structuring them as a minor on European Studies, available to all UFMG students and sponsored by our Center for European Studies. Additionally, we aim to organize seminars and workshops with leading scholars in the field, as a way of systematically exposing our students and faculty to current research on European integration. The main outputs envisaged include working papers, a book on comparative experiences of integration, an online platform for discussion of related themes, and a general increase of awareness about European studies among the academic community and the civil society.
Coordinator: Alexandre Mendes Cunha (Cedeplar/UFMG)
Funding: Erasmus+ European Union Program
2015 – 2019
Dynamics of urban and financial growth: evaluation of centralized expansion vectors
Descrição: The central objective of this research project is to understand the urban dynamics from the point of view of the expansion of its banking capital structure. The studies of urban expansion from the perspective of capital movements, credit allocation, asset valuation and their effects on other urban factors is a subject that is rarely discussed in the literature. The project proposal includes synthesizing the existing theoretical discussions and advancing in a framework that is closer to the dynamics experienced in Brazilian urban centers. From this starting point, the research investigates urban centers and local financial systems, assessing the mutual effects of urban and financial expansion to selected municipalities in the State of Minas Gerais.
Coordinator: Anderson Cavalcante (Cedeplar / UFMG)
Funding: Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de Minas Gerais (FAPEMIG)
2015 – 2019
Regional Resilience in Minas Gerais under Limited Spatial Financialization Conditions
Descritpion: This project is an effort to reposition the discussion over the relationship between money and territory on regional development, placing the financial issue as one of the essential aspects for understanding modern spatial development. More especifically, the object of study is the understanding of the dynamic trajectory of the Minas Gerais State economy in its ability to respond to external shocks (resilience), especially given its productive structure and the latter’s dependence on the financial conditions that are imposed by the adverse and unbalanced context of regional financial development. Once these relationships are understood, it is possible to think of a growth framework that is viable and consistent with the contemporary economic context.
Coordinator: Pedro Vasconcelos do Amaral (Cedeplar / UFMG)
Funding: Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de Minas Gerais (FAPEMIG)
2014 – 2015
Macrozoning of the Metropolitan Region of Belo Horizonte
Description: The proposal to elaborate the Metropolitan Region of Belo Horizonte Macrozoning Plan is part of the effort of the Federal University of Minas Gerais to continue the work developed in the Master Plan for Integrated Development of the Metropolitan Region of Belo Horizonte (PDDI-RMBH). The central prerequisite for the elaboration of Macrozoning is the establishment of a Metropolitan Planning System, permanent and democratic, in which teaching and research institutions have an active participation as producers and disseminators of knowledge on the metropolitan theme.
Coordinator: Roberto Luís de Melo Monte-Mór (Cedeplar / UFMG)
Funding: Metropolitan Agency, Minas Gerais State Government
2011 – 2012
Outline of Principles and Guidelines for a Financial Education Public Policy
Description: he objective of the project is to develop a financial education program for vulnerable populations linked to the Bolsa Família Program.
Coordinator: Marco Aurélio Crocco Afonso (Cedeplar/UFMG)
Funding: United Nations Development Program – Brazil.
Completed public-related (Extension) Projects
2018 – 2019
Valuation of material damage to individuals and firms due to the rupture of the Fundão Dam in Mariana / MG
Description: The project objective is to value the losses resulting from the rupture of the Fundão dam in Mariana in November, 2015. The valuation was organized into four dimensions: economic, health, culture and environment. The Economic dimension included losses of material goods, income from work and business activity (profit loss). In the case of material goods, they were subdivided into two groups: durable and non-durable consumer goods, whose research involved collecting market prices both in the municipality of Mariana/MG and other sources. Still in this group, the survey also included the valuation of real estate, land and structural land improvements. The second group concerns income from work and business activities. In this case, secondary research data and information from official records of the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) were used. The Health dimension encompassed the set of health-related losses, be they temporary and / or permanent, psychic or motor. For this purpose, a specific research instrument was applied, in the form of a questionnaire, which has international recognition. The Culture dimension computed the cultural loss through a specific methodology for estimating the losses related to the livelihood of the affected population. For this purpose, losses related to cultural heritage were calculated from festivals’ spaces, public squares, bars, pubs and other cultural facilities. In this case, it is important to highlight that the cost of reconstructing or repairing these losses was not calculated, but instead it was offered values related to impacts for the individuals, even because there is an understanding that there was a permanent temporal rupture of the social fabric and the geographic space in question that could not be fully rebuilt. Moreover, items of local artisanal production, such as cheeses, wines, biscuits etc., listed under the Culture dimension, also obtained differentiated analytical treatment, with focus groups being held with selected local producers. Finally, the research Environmental dimension estimated the loss of environmental services used by the affected population, respectively to water resources, land use, biodiversity and natural landscape/environmental amenity. It is also important to emphasize that the research considered the losses in the individual use of environmental services, not the costs of environmental recovery. In the case of the Culture and Environment dimensions, own research instruments (questionnaires) were developed and applied to the affected population based on statistical and methodological criteria defined and built for this specific purpose.
Coordinator: Bernardo Campolina (Cedeplar / UFMG)
Financiador: Cáritas Brasileira
2017 – 2018
Evaluation of the Milk for life (Leite pela Vida) Program
Description: The Milk for Life Program is the result of a partnership between the Sedinor/IDENE System (Regional Programs) and the Ministry of Social Development that seeks to encourage the production and consumption of milk. Based on a series of three studies to be carried out by Cedeplar-UFMG in partnership with Sedinor/ IDENE, the general objective of the project is to assess the impact of the Milk for Life Program on the milk production chain and in relation to different health variables and education of its beneficiaries. The program operates on two different fronts: the milk productive structure and the beneficiaries. On the side of the milk production chain, the purpose of the program is to generate employment and income through the local purchase of milk from family farming segments of producers. On the consumer side, the Milk for Life Program works by distributing milk to subgroups of population that are considered vulnerable, in the municipalities that are part of the area covered by IDENE Program.
Coordinator: Cássio Maldonado Turra (Cedeplar / UFMG)
Funder: IDENE / Government of the State of Minas Gerais
2015 – 2017
The current panorama of industrial districts in the State of Minas Gerais and their potential for local development
Description: The objective is to know the current conditions of the 53 industrial districts installed in Minas Gerais, the insertion of each one of them in the local economy and to offer information and economic analysis to support revitalization plan.
Coordinator: Márcia Siqueira Rapini (Cedeplar / UFMG)
Funding: Federation of Industries of the State of Minas Gerais (FIEMG)
Other Completed Projects
2018
Strategic Planning and Development in Minas Gerais
Description: The project aims at systematizing and critically analyzing the implementation of public policies planned within the State government, between 2015-2017. In addition, from the point of view of public finance, in particular from the financial management of resources over time, the characterization and measurement of the challenges and obstacles encountered for the effectiveness of the policies adopted allows for better future planning and the outlining of projections. The survey and systematization of what was proposed and implemented, as well as what was carried out beyond what was proposed, is extremely relevant to inform the permanent planning process in the State of Minas Gerais, as well as to subsidize new public policy actions and projects.
Coordinator: Gustavo Britto (Cedeplar / UFMG)
Funding: Government of the State of Minas Gerais
2016 – 2019
Transfer of Methodologies for Regional Analysis and Development in Minas Gerais
Description: The general objective of the project is the transfer of methodologies of regional analysis and development in Minas Gerais to the Management of Analysis and Productive Development Sector at the Development Bank of Minas Gerais – BDMG. The project is based on four main dimensions: 1) Production structure, 2) Regional development, 3) Financial sector and development banks, 4) Technology and innovation.
Coordinator: Pedro Vasconcelos Maia do Amaral (Cedeplar/UFMG)
Funding: Development Bank of Minas Gerais (BDMG)