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Credit unions play an important socio-economic role in the Brazilian financial system, usually providing individual financial loans at lower interest rates when compared to traditional bank institutions. But the financial efficiency of the credit unions is a key component for the survival in a highly competitive sector that tends toward concentration. Ricardo Terranova Favalli (Central Bank of Brazil), Alexandre Gori Maia (UNICAMP) and José Maria Jardim da Silveira (UNICAMP) analyzed the impacts of governance on the financial efficiency of credit unions in Brazil. The paper was published at the RAUSP Management Journal.  

Vinicius Gaspar Garcia (in memoriam) and Alexandre Gori Maia analyzed the impacts of employment quotas for people with disability in Brazil. The employment quotas law (approved in 1991, but effectively enforced only in the 2000s) orientates companies with 100 or more employees to hire between 2% and 5% of people with disabilities, depending on the company size. The authors found positive and relevant impacts of employment quotas on occupational achievements of people with disability.  

Vinicius Gaspar Garcia unfortunately passed away on Friday, May 22, 2020. Vinicius was professor at Faculdades de Campinas (FACAMP) and researcher at the Research Center on Labor Market for People with Disabilities, from the Institute of Economia (UNICAMP). Vinicius dedicated his life and scientific career to fighting physical and social barriers that prevent the participation of people with disabilities in the labor market and in the social life.

The integration crop-livestock systems (iCL) may provide a number of benefits, such as the restoration of degraded pas-turelands, improvement on the physical, chemical and biological soil attributes, reduction of greenhouse gases emissions, scope economies and rural income diversification. But why the adoption of iCL is still very low? The paper recently published by Marcelo Carrer (UFSCar), Alexandre Gori Maia (UNICAMP), MarcelaVinholis (Embrapa) and Hildo Meirelles de Souza (UFSCar) at the journal Land Use Policy highligths how the provision of subsidized rural credit may be key to the adoption of more sustainable agriculture practices.

Credit will probably not solve the problem of family farming in the developing world, but it may help a lot. The paper recently published by Alexandre Gori Maia, Gabriela Eusebio and Rodrigo Lanna da Silveira (UNICAMP) at the journal Agricultural Finance Review evaluates the impacts of one of the largest programs of rural credit in the developing world, the PRONAF in Brazil.