Economist Sergio Firpo starts writing fortnightly columns

The economist specializing in the labor market and professor at Insper Sergio Firpo starts to write a biweekly column in sheet, at Fridays. His texts will be published on the website, in Mercado, from this Friday (25).

Firpo, 51, graduated in economics from Unicamp (State University of Campinas) in 1996, has a master’s degree in the area from PUC-Rio and a doctorate from the University of California at Berkeley, in the United States.

Specialist in labor economics, education and politics and economic development, he was an assistant professor at the University of British Columbia and PUC-Rio, in addition to being an associate professor at FGV (Fundação Getulio Vargas).

He holds the Instituto Unibanco Chair at Insper, where he has worked for six years.

Firpo is one of the creators of the Ifer (Folha de Equilíbrio Racial Index), an indicator that measures the exclusion of blacks in education, income and survival, created in partnership with fellow economists Michael França and Alysson Portella.

In your columns in sheethe intends to discuss the present and the future of the job market.

“It’s a relevant topic in any historical period and it helps us understand income inequality and racial and gender issues. Diving into the job market helps us understand how people with identical productive characteristics have different trajectories, it’s a field of studies that help explain how the economy affects people’s lives.”

According to him, there are aspects that explain Brazil’s difficulties in maintaining sustainable growth. “The solutions that were given, such as attempts at labor reforms, tackled part of the problems, but apparently did not solve the main issues, which are the ones that sustain the high informality in the country.”

The economist also intends to address the impact on the labor market of regional disparities, which are important and should be a relevant topic in this election year.

He assesses that Brazil will probably have to live with high unemployment in the coming years, unless there are profound changes that offset the prospects that are outlined for 2022, of low growth and a drop in household consumption.