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Event Planning and Business Entertainment in the U.S. Corporate World

A liberal democracy can survive for a while on institutional strength and widespread agreement. As long as most people are generally satisfied with how things are going (or have made peace with the status quo), it is easy to imagine that something like a social contract will keep things on track. Hamish MacAuley makes a persuasive case that many Canadians came of age politically between the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the 2008 financial crisis, when consensus was widespread and politics seemed optional, thus many chose to stay out. We abandoned democratic governing habits during prosperous times. Instead, we played politics. In response, McGill's Jacob T. Levy advocates for political action that rejects the status quo while also refusing to burn it all down or take our ball and go home. We should participate in politics, even if it is unsatisfying. When the foundations of our democratic structure or the rights of vulnerable people are jeopardized, it makes sense to delegate aut

The Luxury Lifestyles of Brazil's Rich Key Locations

Yo, managers in local governments gotta be on top of their game, leading and directing boards in all sorts of areas: from education to transportation, from health to gender equality. It's a big responsibility, fam. They're like the ultimate bosses of the Brazilian public sector, you know? Like, they're totally more educated and make way more bank than your average public employee, ya know? Table 1.1 compares the vibes of managers in Brazilian municipalities with the average vibes of quintiles of public employees' wage distribution. Yo, there's a couple of things to peep about this table. First, like, the average manager vibe is, like, pretty much the same as employees in the top quintile of the wage distribution when it comes to wages and education, you know? OMG, managers get paid, like, an average of 3.83 Brazilian minimum wages (R$ 510,00 a month as of 2010 4) in different cities. But wait, the top tier of managers make an average of 4.315 BRMW, showing that they're totally at the top of the wage game in their cities. Second, managers are like totally vibin' with the top quintile when it comes to educational outcomes, ya know? 

On average, like only 15.5% of employees in a town have finished elementary school or less, ya know? 


For managers, it's like 16.2% and for the fifth quintile, it's 43%. But for the employees in the first quintile, it's a whopping 43%, fam. On the flip side of the instruction composition, managers and the fifth quintile are lowkey alike. On average, like, 31.3% of managers have flexed their superior education, while a solid 45.7% of the top quintile peeps have done the same. 
Where managers and the top quintile are hella different, tho, is on the contract type com- position. Managers, like, totally have a higher share of temporary contracts (55.3%) than any other quintile of the wage distribution, including the top one. This is hella crucial for this study, cuz temporary contracts are like when mayors have mad power to hire and fire peeps. Subsec % of the Brazilian pop. Managers be hella showing a major gender gap: Only 41% of them are women, like bruh. This diff in comp is like way more lit when we peep the vibes within the manager position (Figure 1.3). Female managers are like, totally more woke than men: On average, female managers are more likely to have flexed through high school and superior education but less likely to have flexed only elementary school or less. This lowkey implies that, like, not having enough qualified peeps isn't really the main thing causing the gender gap in, you know, managerial roles. Finally, it's lowkey important to peep that even though they're mad skilled, female managers still deal with a wage gap of like 10% even when they're in charge. Hirings and Separations, but make it lit fam. Brazilian Munis are like, in charge of providing a bunch of lit public goods in areas like health and education, ya know? Funding for this provision comes primarily from state and federal governments through direct transfers [38]. So, like, mayors have mad freedom to do their thing with policies and budgets. And get this, the local public sectors make up a huge chunk of the whole public sector workforce, like 56 percent in 2014. Selection processes for most public sector jobs usually go by this thing called "Concurso Publico" (public civil service exams), which is like, a direct and objective but kinda slow way of picking people. 

First, peeps applying for a gig gotta flex their creds and go through a legit exam, which can be hella different depending on the job and industry. 


It could be written or spoken tests, you know? Candidates are then flexed on their grades in these exams, and the ones with the highest grades are like, totally offered the position. Public Servants hired thru these civil service exams face mad stability on the job: They get tenure after only three years on the position and can only get fired if they do some serious misconduct. To let elected peeps flex their power in hiring their squad, the Brazilian constitution also lets them skip the boring civil service exams and make temporary hires on the low. In the case of this type of contract, mayors have like, total flex in the selection. This kind of hiring is like only for the top dogs and it's super flexy, 'cause there ain't no rules for the selection criteria, ya know? Job stability is like, totally not guaranteed, with peeps in these positions dealing with separation laws that are, like, the same as in the private sector. Figure 1.2 shows the vibes of people leaving and joining the manager squad at the municipality level during my analysis (2004 - 2018). There are three things to peep about this figure: First, like, most of the movement of separations and hirings is like driven by managers with temporary contracts, showing the mad dynamism of this type of contract. Second, hirings usually go down in the first year of the electoral cycle (2005, 2009, 2013, 2017) and people tend to bounce on the last (2004, 2008, 2012, 2016). This totally vibes with the idea that short-term hired managers are all about the elected politician's vibe, since they bounce with the electoral cycle.

Finally, managers who slide into and dip out of the public sector through civil service exams also lowkey show a lil' cyclicality. 


OMG, this is so not surprising; employees can dip out of their job whenever they want and might bounce more often when an election is happening. Furthermore, like, mayors have like zero say in who gets hired on those public civil service exams, but they can totally decide when to hold those exams and when to hire, ya know? Hence the small cyclical vibes on the stable contract manager time series should not be seen as an issue, fam. Brazil is, like, a totally democratic country with all of its 5,570 mu- nicipalities being run by a mayor elected every four years in direct elections. It's, like, super legit, you know? Municipalities with more than 200k registered voters be like, if no candidate gets a fat majority in the first round, they gotta do a run-off. Elections are usually lit in October with the elected candidate flexing in office with their squad on the first of January of the next year. Mayors are like, so term-limited and can only be in office for, like, two consecutive terms (eight years). OMG, with the whole direct transfers thing, mayors have, like, major flex when it comes to spending municipality funds and putting together their squad for the board. It's lit! Like, in most areas of Brazilian politics, women are hella underrepresented politically on the mayoral position. It's like, not cool, you know? OMG, like in my sample, only a lil' over 26% of elections have a girl boss candidate and only 9% have a queen bee winner. I'm gonna spill the tea on what happens when we elect these mayors, fam.

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