Brazilian Economy

Approximately forty years after commercial cropping of soybean in Brazil began, the total area under this crop has reached over 13 M ha with a mean productivity of 2400 kg ha−1. Soybean varieties introduced from the USA and varieties rescued from early introductions in Brazilian territory were part of the Brazilian soybean-breeding programme which spread the crop from high to low latitudes. Disease-resistance, pest-resistance, tolerance to low fertility soils, as well as production of plants with pods sufficiently high above the ground for efficient mechanical harvesting, were all aims of the programme. Although BNF was not explicitly considered as a trait for selection in the breeding/selection programme, maximisation of biological nitrogen fixation (BNF) was favoured by conducting selection and breeding trials on soils low in N, in which the seeds were inoculated with efficient Bradyrhizobium inoculants but without N fertiliser application. Several efficient imported Bradyrhizobium strains were found to be unable to compete with native soil micro-flora and other previously-introduced Bradyrhizobium strains. Surprisingly, after being in the soil for many years one or two of these strains had become more competitive while maintaining their high BNF capacity. Today, these strains are included amongst the recommended Brazilian inoculants and have promoted significant improvements in grain yields. The breeding of soybeans in conditions that made grain yield highly dependent on BNF, and the continuous attention paid to the selection of Bradyrhizobium strains appropriate for the newly released varieties, have been the main contributors to today's high yields and their great benefit to the Brazilian economy. There seems to be no reason why this ongoing research programme should not serve as an appropriate model to improve BNF inputs to grain legumes in other countries of the world.

This paper studies structural transformation and its implications for productivity growth in the BRIC countries based on a new database that provides trends in value added and employment at a detailed 35-sector level. We find that for China, India and Russia reallocation of labour across sectors is contributing to aggregate productivity growth, whereas in Brazil it is not. However, this result is overturned when a distinction is made between formal and informal activities. Increasing formalization of the Brazilian economy since 2000 appears to be growth-enhancing, while in India the increase in informality after the reforms is growth-reducing.

This paper seeks to understand how the Brazilian Amazon, which many thought unsuitable for agricultural development, has yielded to a dynamic cattle economy in only a few decades. It does so by embedding the Thunian model of location rents within the regime of capital accumulation that has driven the Brazilian economy since the mid-20th century. The paper addresses policies that have created location rents in Amazônia, the effect of these rents on land managers, and the spatial implications of their behavior on forests. Thus, the paper connects macro-processes and structures to agents on the ground, in providing a political ecological explanation relevant to land change science. The policy discussion focuses on reductions in transportation costs, improvements in animal health, and monetary and trade reforms. To illustrate the impact of policy, the paper presents data on the geography of Amazonian herd expansion, on the growth of Amazonian exports, and on the profitability of the region's cattle economy. It follows the empirical presentation with more abstract consideration of the spatial relations between cattle ranching and soy farming, and implications for deforestation. The paper concludes on a speculative note by considering the likelihood of forest transition in the region, given the transformation of Amazônia into a global resource frontier.

This paper examines the sources of changes in energy use of the Brazilian economy of industries and households from 1970 to 1996, using structural decomposition analysis based on the logarithmic mean divisia index technique. Energy use can be decomposed into eight factors that explain changes in overall energy use over the entire time period, and within five sub-periods. The growth of energy use between 1970 and 1996 was mainly influenced by changes in affluence, population and intersectoral dependencies, while changes in direct energy intensity and per capita residential energy use had a retarding impact on energy use. The novel contributions of the paper are the alignment of a previously disparate data set, the use of supply-use tables for SDA, and the application of such an SDA to a developing country. Both contributions involve solving a range of methodological issues pertaining to handling of large data sets.

Since the mid-1990s Brazil has become one of the main recipients of foreign direct investment (FDI) in the automobile sector. As already happened in the late 1950s and early 1960s, world car manufacturers are investing heavily in the building of new car plants. The reasons behind the renewed interest of car companies in Brazil have been the huge and expanding internal market and the relatively stable macroeconomic panorama of the mid-1990s. However, and in contrast to what happened in the 1950s and 1960s, most new car plants are being located outside the São Paulo metropolitan area, the traditional hub of the Brazilian motor industry. Although some argue that, among other reasons, this is the result of lower labour costs elsewhere in Brazil and of improved infrastructure in the country, this article tries to demonstrate that the recent decentralization of the Brazilian motor industry is basically linked to perverse territorial competition among Brazilian states. This sort of territorial competition -known in Brazil as the 'fiscal' wars-represents a pure waste of resources, both for the states engaged in them, as well as for Brazil as a whole.

1 U n i v e r s i d a d e Fe d e r a l d o R i o G r a n d e d o S u l , P o r t o A l e g r e , B r a z i l . E -m a i l s : l r r i o s @ v e t o r i a l . n e t ; a c g m a c a d a @ e a . u f r g s . b r Maritime transport is extremely important for the world economy, and similarly for the Brazilian economy. The objective of this paper is to analyse the relative efficiency of operations in container terminals of Mercosur in the years of 2002, 2003 and 2004, using the data envelopment analysis technique in a model BCC, with five inputs (number of cranes, number of berths, number of employees, terminal area, amount of yard equipment) and two outputs (TEUs handled and average number of containers handled per hour/ship). The units of analysis are 15 Brazilian, six Argentinean and two Uruguayan container terminals. The analysis shows that 60% of the terminals were efficient in the 3-year period. Benchmarking analysis of Zarate, Rio Cubatão and Teconvi revealed that those terminals served as reference for inefficient terminals more often than other terminals.

The Brazilian economy has long relied on the minimum wage, having first implemented a minimum in 1940. Shortly after taking office in 2003, Brazil's President raised the minimum wage by 20 percent and promised to double the value of the minimum wage before his term ends in 2006. The usual rationale for minimum wage increases is to bring about beneficial changes in the income distribution, by raising incomes of poor and low-income families. The goal of this paper is to evaluate the efficacy of the minimum wage in Brazil in bringing about these changes in the income distribution. We examine data drawn from Brazil's major metropolitan areas, studying the years after Brazil's hyper-inflation ended. The estimates provide no evidence that minimum wages in Brazil lift family incomes at the lower points of the income distribution; if anything some of the evidence points to adverse effects on lower-income families.

Este artigo objetiva mostrar que a Bunge Brasil se consolidou como grupo econômico na segunda metade do século XX. Fundada em Amsterdam em 1818, atua no país desde 1905, chegando via Argentina onde estava presente desde o final do século XIX com o nome de Bunge y Born. Na década de 1990, o grupo Bunge Brasil chegou a ter 127 firmas independentes. Para este artigo selecionamos quatro delas, que representam diversos setores: trigo e moagem (Moinho Fluminense); tintas, vernizes e derivados (Tintas Coral); agronegócio e exportações (Sanbra); setor têxtil e confecções (Santista Têxtil). Teoricamente o texto segue os autores que discutem a formação de grupos econômicos em economias periféricas. Os dados primários foram levantados junto ao Centro de Memória Bunge, em São Paulo, e através de entrevistas. Como conclusão prévia pode-se afirmar que a Bunge se consolidou como grupo econômico na medida em que foi diversificando suas atividades e transformando algumas de suas 127 empresas em conglomerados industriais, elas mesmas tendo suas próprias coligadas e constituindo-se em outros grupos econômicos.

This paper takes up some of the newly developed tools of spatial econometrics to analyse the importance of geography in regional growth. This perspective is used to characterise growth features in the Brazilian economy. Two strands of empirical literature are brought together to draw the picture of geography as a factor affecting differential economic performance. Firstly, spatial statistics tradition is implemented to examine the spatial dependence of regional per capita income in Brazil for the last six decades. Secondly, the role that geography may have on the determination of growth paths is approached using intradistribution dynamics tools based on the construction of Markov transition matrices and stochastic kernels, for discrete and continuous analysis respectively.

The concept of exergy is applied to a national economy as a tool for energy planning. Conversions and utilizations of energy carriers in Brazil are described in terms of both energy and exergy. The energy analysis of the Brazilian economy shows that the overall first-law efficiency of the country's energy system is 32.4%, while the exergy analysis shows that the overall second-law efficiency is only 22.8%. Expressed in a different way, the exergy approach uncovers that the efficiency with which the Brazilian economy uses its energy resources is only about two-thirds of that manifested by the traditional heat-balance approach. The exergy approach not only reveals the existence of an inadequate match between the quality of the energy carriers supplied to end users and the quality required by final consumers to perform their energy services, but also indicates that there is room for improvement in the nations's energy conversion and utilization systems. These facts imply that the Brazilian economy has a significant potential for energy savings and, consequently, great promise for reducing the environmental burden associated with energy production and use, without compromising the quality of the services demanded by end users or else for providing greater services with the same energy.

Attempts to identify key sectors in an economy with input-output models have been a source of considerable debate. in this paper; several old and new approaches to the problem are evaluated with reference to the Brazilian economy using the input+xtput models for 1959, 1970 and 1975. Two alternative approaches are suggested in this paper. The first of these focuses on key coefficients through the identification of fields of influence associated with changes in these coefficients, including the effects of simultaneous changes in more than one coefficient. The second approach decomposes the interindustry transactions into a set (hierarchy) of flows. It is claimed that the flows associated with the higher levels of the hierarchy can be considered as the key flows or most important transactions. These new approaches are compared to earlier techniques to examine the degree to which important changes in the economy could be detected. Journal oj Policy Modeling 11( I ):67-90 ( 1989) 0 Society for Policy Modeling, 1989 67 0161~8938/89/$03.50 'While the framework for a CGE model was prepared (Guilhoto 19%) in the spirit of the ORANI model ol' Australia (Dixon) et al. 1980), the model has yet to be implemented empirically.

This paper addresses the potential effects of the Doha round of trade negotiations upon poverty and income distribution in Brazil, using an applied general equilibrium (AGE) and micro-simulation model of Brazil tailored for income distribution and poverty analysis. Of particular importance is the fact that the Representative Household hypothesis is replaced by a very detailed representation of households. The model distinguishes 10 different labour types, and has 270 different household expenditure patterns. Income can originate from 41 different production activities (which produce 52 commodities), located in 27 different regions inside the country. The AGE model communicates to a micro-simulation model that has 112,055 Brazilian households and 263,938 adults. Economic activity in Brazil, a large country, is spread unevenly across the territory. Manufacturing industries are concentrated in the SouthEast region, while agriculture, although more evenly distributed geographically, is the main source of income of the Center-West states. Poverty, on the other hand, is a pervasive phenomenon in the country, which has one of the worse income distributions in the world. The poorest states in Brazil (defined based on the share of population below the poverty line) are concentrated in the NorthEastern states. Poverty and income distribution indices are computed over the entire sample of households and persons, before and after the policy shocks. Model results shows that even important trade policy shocks, such as those applied in this study, do not generate dramatic changes in the structure of poverty and income distribution in the Brazilian economy. The simulated effects on poverty and income distribution are positive, but rather small. The benefits are, however, concentrated in the poorest households. The study also suggests that the poverty reductions would arise from the income earning changes, and not from the fall in the consumption bundle prices. This outcome is highly correlated to the agriculture and related industries, which have their activity levels increased in all simulations. Finally, the bulk of the poverty impacts can be attributed to the liberalization by other countries, rather than to changes in Brazil's tariff structure. From a methodological point of view, the study emphasizes the need to approach poverty analysis by the household (rather than the personal) dimension, by tracking changes in the labor market from individual workers to households. In the PNAD 2001 data used here, the head-ofhousehold income accounts for only 65 percent of aggregated household income in Brazil. As a consequence, using head-of-household income as a proxy for household income may poorly predict the effect of policy changes.

Most world city studies focus on where the provision of advanced producer services takes place, but in this study the location of the service clients are also taken into account. Production-service transactions are identiWed as links between 'service city' and 'decision city' (client HQ) and classiWed as intra-city (where a Wrms uses local (same city) services) and inter-city which may be domestic or foreign depending on whether the client uses services in or out of the country. Sampling the leading Wrms in Brazil, 218 transaction links are described and analysed in terms of cities, Wrm sectors, ownership and market. The analyses are used to inform a rereading of gateway city functions that takes into account the concentration/dispersal nexus in economic globalization. Thus, whereas the dominance of Sao Paulo in the Brazilian economy is conWrmed, this is not interpreted as a simple gateway function with this one city 'articulating' the national economy into the world economy. A much more complex situation is revealed with by-passing of the gateway also much in evidence. The conclusion is that this shows concentration and dispersion of economic activity happening simultaneously in Brazil.

In 1956, Africanized bees began to spread in the American continent from southern Brazil, where original African bees mated with European bees. A few years later, in 1990, these Africanized bees reached the United States and were found in Texas. Currently, these hybrid bees are found in several North American states and will probably reach the Canadian border in the future. Although the presence of Africanized bees had produced positive effects on Brazilian economy, including improvement in crop pollination and in honey production, turning Brazil into a major exporter, the negative impacts-such as swarming, aggressive behavior, and the ability to mass attack-resulted in serious and fatal envenomation with humans and animals. Victims of bee attacks usually develop a severe envenomation syndrome characterized by the release of a large amount of cytokines [interleukins (IL) IL-1, IL-6, IL-8], and tumor necrosis factor (TNF). Subsequently, such cytokines produce an acute inflammatory re...

Analisa-se a perda de dinamismo do crescimento econômico brasileiro a partir da década de 1980, utilizando a abordagem keynesiana de crescimento sob restrição externa. Resultados empíricos revelaram que a taxa de crescimento no período 1930-2004 foi a compatível com o equilíbrio externo e que o câmbio real e o fluxo de capitais tiveram um papel reduzido na obtenção desse equilíbrio. Mas a perda de dinamismo do crescimento, a partir da década de 1980, pode ser explicada por uma maior perversidade desse equilíbrio, dado o comportamento do fluxo de capitais e do câmbio real. Nos anos 1990, por sua vez, a estratégia de desenvolvimento provocou uma quebra estrutural na elasticidade-renda das importações, fazendo com que o equilíbrio externo resultasse em uma taxa de crescimento mais baixa.

This paper investigates the effects of institutional reforms in Brazil. It first provides a comparative assess-8 ment of the level of institutional development of Brazil with other Latin American countries such as Chile 9 and Argentina. It considers institutional indicators on "doing private business", including those related to 10 the start up costs, employment rigidity, the expropriation of private investment and bankruptcy law. In gen-11 eral, Brazil presents a lower level of institutional development than Chile and Argentina. As an example, 12 the number of procedures to start a business in Brazil is roughly twice as large as in Chile. We evaluate 13 the importance of institutional differences on economic development using data for a wide cross-section of 16 91(5), 1369-1398], we use the European mortality rate in the colonial period and the "legal origin" to exploit 17 exogenous variation in the level of institutions. We identify issues where institutional reforms are likely to 18 significantly affect per capita gross domestic product (GDP), the ratio of private credit to GDP and the ratio 19 of investment to GDP. We then construct three indices developed in [Tavares, J. (2004). Institutions 20 and economic growth in Portugal: a quantitative exploration. Portuguese Economic Journal, 3, 49-79] that 21 measure the potential of institutional reforms by using institutional distance, in our case between Brazil and 22 Chile. The most promising reforms for the Brazilian economy, as far as their effects on output per capita, are, 23 in decreasing order: (i) reducing the number of procedures to open a business; (ii) decreasing the average 24 time involved in insolvency proceedings; (iii) increasing labor market flexibility; and (iv) increase effective 25 creditor's protection. 26 QUAECO 441 1-21 corroborated the Douglass North (1990) hypothesis that institutions are the underlying determinant 34 of long-run economic performance of nations. Countries with better institutions not only invest 35 more in physical and human capital, but they also use these factors more efficiently. 36 In economics we cannot use laboratory experiments to determine the impacts of different 37 policies and institutions on economic development. However, in the real world, there are various 38 historical incidents that come close to the concept of "natural experiment". Some examples, as 39 pointed out by Mancur Olson (1996), are the divergent path of North and South Korea, East and 40 West Germany, and Hong Kong and Mainland China, countries that were divided for political 41 reasons and followed divergent economical paths. 2 Another "experiment" is the colonization of 42 the new world by Europeans. As argued by Acemoglu, Johnson, and Robinson (2001), Europeans 43 adopted very different colonization policies in different colonies, originating a very diverse set 44 of institutions. 3 Where settler mortality was low and long stays palatable, colonizers adopted 45 institutions that provide a legal environment that protected private property and constrained gov-46 ernment and elite expropriation of private investment. In contrast, where settler mortality was 47 QUAECO 441 1-21 T.V. Cavalcanti et al. / The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance xxx (2007) xxx-xxx 3 This paper investigates the role of institutions in Brazilian economic development. We consider 60 data from different institutional features. These indicate the regulatory costs of "doing private 61 business", such as those related to start up costs, employment rigidity, the expropriation of private 62 investment and the bankruptcy law. We then evaluate the importance of these different institu-63 tions on economic development using data for a wide cross-section of countries. The economic 64 indicators to be explained are the per capita gross domestic product (GDP), the ratio of private 65 credit to GDP and the ratio of investment to GDP. We initially provide a comparative diagnostic 66 of the level of institutional development of Brazil with respect to other Latin American countries 67 such as Chile and Argentina. We then estimate the impact of selected institutions on those three 68 economic indicators. Following Acemoglu et al. (2001), we use the European mortality rate in the 69 colonial period and the "legal origin" to exploit exogenous variation in (on?) the level of institu-70 tions. Using the results from the regressions we construct three indices based on Tavares (2004) 71 that measure the potential of institutional reforms by taking into consideration the institutional 72 distance between Brazil and Chile. These indices measure which reforms have the highest payoff 73 in terms of economic development, which are "less costly" to undertake and which deliver the 74 best result per required effort. 75 2. Empirical strategy 76

Neste artigo estimamos e simulamos um modelo macroeconômico aberto de expectativas racionais (Batini e Haldane [5]) para a economia brasileira, com o objetivo de identificar as características das regras monetárias ótimas e a dinâmica de curto prazo gerada por elas. Trabalhamos com uma versão forward-looking e uma versão backward-looking a fim de comparar o desempenho de três parametrizações de regras monetárias, que diferem em relação à variável de inflação: a tradicional regra de Taylor, que se baseia na inflação passada; uma regra que combina inflação e taxa de câmbio real (ver Ball [3]) e uma regra que utiliza previsões de inflação (ver Bank of England [4]). Resolvemos o modelo numericamente e contruímos fronteiras eficientes em relação às variâncias do produto e da inflação por simulações estocásticas. Os conjuntos de regras ótimas para as duas versões são qualitativamente distintos. Devido à incerteza quanto ao grau de forward-lookingness sugerimos a escolha das regras pela soma das funções objetivos nas duas versões. Concluímos que as regras escolhidas com base neste critério têm perdas moderadas em relação às regras ótimas, mas previnem perdas maiores que resultariam da escolha da regra com base na versão errada. Finalmente calculamos funções de resposta a impulso dos dois modelos para algumas regras selecionadas, a fim de avaliar como * Os autores agradecem aos cometários de Alexandre Tombini, Carlos H. Araujo, Ilan Goldfajn, Marcelo K. Muinhos, Marcos A. Silveira, Osmani T. Guillen, Rebecca W. Barros, dois pareceristas anônimos, e aos participantes dos seminários da EPGE/FGV e BACEN pelas discussões e comentários. † Este autor agradece o apoio à pesquisa do PRONEX e do CNPq e a bolsa de pesquisa do CNPq. Endereço para correspondência: [email protected]. ‡ Professor do Departamento de Economia do IBMEC-Rio e doutorando da EPGE/FGV.

The literature on monetary economy has aroused growing interest in macroeconomics. Due to computational advancements, models have become increasingly more complex and accurate, allowing for an indepth analysis of the relationships between real economic variables and nominal variables. Therefore, using a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) model, based on Gali and Monacelli (2005), we propose and estimate a model for the Brazilian economy by employing Bayesian methods so as to assess whether the Central Bank of Brazil takes exchange rate fluctuations into account in the conduct of monetary policy. The most striking result of the present study is that the Central Bank of Brazil does not directly change the interest rate path due to exchange rate movements. A simulation exercise is also used. Our conclusion is that the economy quickly accommodates shocks induced separately on the exchange rate, on the terms of trade, interest rate, and global inflation.

We extend Miyazawa and Masegi's original idea of disaggregated interrelational income multipliers with regard to three aspects. First, we examine the effect of system closure on the inter-income-group matrix. Second, we formally include inter-household transactions, or the informal economy, into Miyazawa's calculus. Third, we extend the interrelational multiplier to environmental factors. These extensions are applied to the Brazilian economy of 1995. Multiplier matrices excluding and including the informal economy are presented and interpreted, and the redistributive process of transfer payments is traced through consecutive spending rounds for various scenarios. Finally, these redistributive processes are enumerated in terms of transport fuel and electricity use. Our results indicate that, because of the distribution of ownership of productive capital, the income formation process is heavily skewed toward the highest incomes. Whether the existing process and potential redistributive policies alleviate environmental pressure depends on the factors as well as the population segment appraised.

Os períodos de crescimento acelerado da economia brasileira do pós-guerra até a década de 1970 foram constrangidos pela restrição externa. Propomos nesse artigo um modelo baseado em Kaldor, onde estabelecemos uma relação entre acumulação de capital, hiato tecnológico e restrição externa ao crescimento de longo-prazo para economias periféricas. A hipótese básica do modelo é que a acumulação de capital, sob certas condições, pode contornar a restrição externa ao crescimento dessas economias desde que o esforço de acumulação seja capaz de produzir uma mudança estrutural no sentido de aumentar a participação relativa dos setores mais dinâmicos do ponto de vista tecnológico. Essa mudança estrutural irá resultar em um aumento gradual da elasticidade-renda das exportações e numa redução da elasticidade-renda das importações, aumentando assim a taxa de crescimento do produto real que é compatível com o equilíbrio de longo-prazo do balanço de pagamentos. Ilustramos ao final do artigo que a economia brasileira do pós-guerra até os anos 1970 apresentou uma elevada taxa de acumulação de capital, aprofundando o processo de substituição de importações, o que na nossa interpretação contribuiu para parcialmente permitir relaxar a restrição externa ao crescimento de longo-prazo.

Miguel Bruno (IPEA-UERJ) Eliane Araújo (IPEA) Débora Pimentel (ENCE) Resumo Diversos trabalhos empíricos têm procurado detectar os impactos das estratégias nacionais de liberalização econômica sobre as estruturas de produção industrial. Nessa problemática, as mudanças de regimes cambiais, entendido como o conjunto de regras que governam a definição das taxas de câmbio, têm se constituído em um ponto de partida natural para uma análise robusta das transformações da indústria, quando o grau de abertura comercial e financeira é significativamente aprofundado. No entanto, diferentemente do que ocorre no âmbito internacional, a literatura econômica para o caso do Brasil ainda carece de estudos sobre os efeitos das taxas de câmbio sobre o comportamento da indústria. Este artigo propõe uma análise das relações entre regime cambial e evolução da indústria de transformação brasileira no período 1980-2008. Seu principal objetivo é detectar o sentido das transformações estruturais impostas pela nova forma de inserção internacional consolidada ao longo da década de 1990. O trabalho proporciona ainda novas evidências empíricas quanto às hipóteses de desindustrialização e de "doença holandeza", que marcam o debate atual sobre os efeitos da apreciação real do câmbio numa economia como a Brasileira. Palavras chaves: taxa de câmbio, indústria e mudanças estruturais.

We present a Structuralist-Keynesian theoretical approach on the determinants of the real exchange rate (RER) for open emerging economies. Instead of macroeconomic fundamentals, the long-term trend of the real exchange rate level is better determined not only by structural forces and long-term economic policies, but also by both short-term macroeconomic policies and their indirect effects on other short-term economic variables.

Downloadable! This paper presents a small-scale structural model to the Brazilian economy with an external block. The nominal exchange rate forecast is based on an uncovered interest rate, which is estimated in monthly terms since the switching of the exchange regime in 1999 ...

This article presents a contribution to the empirical literature concerning credit channels in emerging economies. Based on data from 2002 to 2009, three sets of GMM models are considered in this article for analyzing the macroeconomic relevance of the credit channels in Brazil: (i) the first set analyzes the effects of shocks on economic variables which are essential for credit supply; (ii) the second set considers the effects of the same variables used in the previous case on credit spread; and (iii) the third set takes into account the effects of changes in the credit market conditions on the product. In addition, with the intention of showing the effects of shocks on the variables which are relevant in the GMM models for credit supply, spread, and product, a VAR analysis is made. Finally, with the objective of testing the results, a GMM system model is built. The findings denote that the effects of economic shocks on credit supply and on credit spread are in accordance with the credit channel theory. In particular, it is observed that shocks on the interest rate are not transmitted directly to the economy but through the credit channels.

This paper presents the Brazilian process of economic development over the 1970-2000 period, analyzing whether there is convergence or not across municipalities. Based on data from the Demographic Census, the results point out to an unequal development process among regions. There is no evidence of convergence in the three decades analyzed, and the spatial heterogeneity goes beyond the geographical administrative divisions of the States or the macro regions North, Northeast, Central-West, Southeast and South.

O processo de abertura comercial trouxe mudanças importantes para a economia brasileira. As empresas melhoraram a produtividade a fim de se inserirem de forma competitiva no mercado internacional. Este trabalho analisou as diferenças de produtividade entre firmas exportadoras e firmas não exportadoras no Brasil. Utilizando o teste não paramétrico de Kolmogorov-Smirnov, comparam-se as distribuições de produtividade com dados ao nível de firmas. Os resultados encontrados mostram claramente maiores níveis de produtividade para as firmas exportadoras do que para as firmas não exportadoras. Ademais, as evidências encontradas mostram-se mais robustas para o grupo de firmas de pequeno porte vis-à-vis as firmas de grande porte. Quanto à explicação dessas diferenças, os resultados encontrados parecem dar suporte à hipótese de seleção, ou seja, o maior nível de produtividade das firmas exportadoras aparenta ser fruto de processos de seleção das firmas não apenas na entrada, mas também na saíd...

The purpose of this work is to verify the existence of possible tradeoffs between policies direct to reduce the emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs) with the ones direct to foster the development of the Brazilian Amazon Region, which is one of the poorest in the country. In order to achieve this goal, this paper uses an interregional input-output (I-O) model, estimated for the Brazilian economy for the year of 2004. The I-O model is used to make a comparison between the economical and the environmental relevance of each sector in the economies of the Amazon region and the rest of Brazil. This study considers the greenhouse gases emissions not only from the economic activities by itself, but, also for the more important factor of the land-use changes. This is a fact of most importance, given that in 2005, about 60% of the Brazilian GHGs emissions were due to the land-use change in its different biomes. Moreover, in the Brazilian Amazon region, especially in the last decades, the deforestation was linked mainly to economic factors than to policies conducted by the government. The results show that the sectors with the greatest importance in terms of emissions are cattle and soybean production. Also, they are also the most prominent for the region's economic development. This poses a dilemma that needs to be faced not only by Brazil, but also by the developed nations, as the burden of the reduction in the greenhouse gases emission in the Brazilian Amazon region cannot be only put on the poor population of the region!

The present article aims to analyze the recent behavior of real exchange rate in Brazil and its effects over investment per worker in Brazilian manufacturing and extractive industry. Preliminary estimates presented in the article shows an over-valuation of 48% of real exchange rate in Brazil. The reaction between the level (and volatility) of real exchange rate and investment (per worker) in Brazil is analyzed by means of a panel data econometric model for 30 sectors of Brazilian manufacturing and extractive industry. The empirical results show that the level and volatility of real exchange rate has a strong effect over investment per worker in Brazilian industry. Finally, we conclude the article presenting a proposal for a new macroeconomic regime that aims to produce an acceleration of economic growth of Brazilian economy and, by that, a catching-up process with developed countries.

Resumo: Analisa-se a perda de dinamismo do crescimento econômico brasileiro a partir da década de 1980 com base na abordagem keynesiana de crescimento sob restrição externa. Resultados empíricos revelaram que a taxa de crescimento no período 1930-2004 foi a compatível com o equilíbrio externo e que o câmbio real e o fluxo de capitais tiveram um papel reduzido na obtenção desse equilíbrio. Mas a perda de dinamismo do crescimento, a partir da década de 1980, pode ser explicada por uma maior perversidade desse equilíbrio, dado o comportamento do fluxo de capitais e do câmbio real. Nos anos 1990, por sua vez, a estratégia de desenvolvimento provocou uma quebra estrutural na elasticidade-renda das importações, fazendo com que o equilíbrio externo resultasse em uma taxa de crescimento mais baixa.

One of the main concerns about the mechanization process of the sugar cane harvest is its direct and indirect impact over the employment. To study such an impact, it was: a) constructed an interregional input-output model, for the Brazilian economy for 1997, at the level of its 5 macro regions, with specific details for the sugar cane, alcohol, and sugar sectors; b) estimated the employment level, for the sectors in the model, by the qualification level of the workforce, i.e., by years of study (less than 1 year, 1 to 3 years, 4 to 7 years, 8 to 10 years, 11 to 14 years, and greater than 15 years); c) construct 3 possible scenarios for the mechanization process. The results are rather stressing, from the estimated 510,651 people working in the sugar cane harvest in 1997, one has that, depending on the scenario being considered, the total workforce will be reduced somewhere between 243,211 to 316,288 people, mainly in the lower qualification levels and in the Northeast and Southeast regions. This also has an impact over the employment generate indirectly, which is estimated through the use of the interregional input-output model constructed.

O objetivo desse estudo é verificar se existe dominância fiscal ou monetária na economia brasileira no período pós-Plano Real. Investiga-se a relação de equilíbrio de longo prazo e a causalidade de Granger bivariada e multivariada entre as variáveis taxa nominal de juros, relação dívida/PIB, relação superávit primário/PIB, taxa real de câmbio e o prêmio de risco. Os resultados sugerem que a economia brasileira encontra-se sob regime de dominância monetária, segundo as definições propostas por Sargent e Wallace (1981). Além disso, o modelo proposto por Blanchard (2004) não encontra apoio empírico no período analisado.

The offi ce market in São Paulo has been in recession since the year 2000. This situation came up due to two main factors: [i] -the very aggressive attitude of developers during the period that comprises the year 1999 until 2000. At that time there was a very strong perception among investors that a new expansion era for new offi ce buildings in São Paulo was about to begin and, moreover the Brazilian economy had started its recovery; [ii] -The intense retraction of the Brazilian economy along with the political transition in 2002, which was mainly caused by the deterioration of the expectations in relation to the economic policies that would be performed by the new government.

The paper assesses long memory patterns in the Brazilian stock market index (Ibovespa) for sub-periods before and after the Real Stabilization Plan. Evidence favours the existence of short memory for both periods despite the so-called reforms the Brazilian economy has been going through in the nineties and, in particular, after the Real Plan. Sumário O artigo avalia padrões de memória longa no mercado de ações brasileiro (Ibovespa) para sub-períodos antes e após o Plano Real. A evidência sugere a existência de memória curta para ambos os períodos, apesar das reformas que vem sendo perseguidas no país durante os anos 90 e, mais particularmente, desde o início do plano de estabilização.

As barreiras comerciais protegem as economias da concorrência internacional, mas distorcem o comércio entre elas e reduzem os benefícios que poderiam advir dos acordos de livre comércio. O objetivo deste trabalho é avaliar os impactos da criação da Área de Livre Comércio das Américas (Alca), com desgravação tarifária gradual, nos principais indicadores da economia brasileira. O modelo de equilíbrio geral do Global Trade Analysis Project (GTAP) é adotado como instrumento metodológico. Somente alguns setores do agronegócio mostraram-se competitivos. O setor de manufaturados não foi competitivo em nenhum dos cenários, e os setores florestais, têxteis e calçados tiveram aumento significativo na produção e na exportação. Os indicadores de crescimento econômico e bem-estar foram favoráveis ao Brasil, em todos os cenários, mesmo que o crescimento tenha sido pequeno.