Feasibility analysis for biofuel production and investment recommendation

A FGV Projetos posiciona-se com destaque no desenvolvimento de projetos e estudos sobre biocombustíveis. Especialistas no assunto apontam para a viabilidade da produção de biocombustíveis em diversos países, e recomendam investimentos em toda a cadeia produtiva, específicos para cada localidade. Isso permitirá aos países que desejam reduzir a dependência por combustíveis fósseis, tais como o petróleo, a diversificação da matriz energética, o aumento do emprego no campo, e uma melhora do saldo comercial. Este documento apresenta síntese dos trabalhos realizados e em desenvolvimento, e tem como base os estudos de viabilidade para a produção de biocombustíveis de El Salvador e da República Dominicana.

Growth and distribution: a revised classical model

This paper discusses distribution and the historical phases of capitalism. It assumes that technical progress and growth are taking place, and, given that, its question is on the functional distribution of income between labor and capital, having as reference classical theory of distribution and Marx’s falling tendency of the rate of profit. Based on the historical experience, it, first, inverts the model, making the rate of profit as the constant variable in the long run and the wage rate, as the residuum; second, it distinguishes three types of technical progress (capital-saving, neutral and capital-using) and applies it to the history of capitalism, having the UK and France as reference. Given these three types of technical progress, it distinguishes four phases of capitalist growth, where only the second is consistent with Marx prediction. The last phase, after World War II, should be, in principle, capital-saving, consistent with growth of wages above productivity. Instead, since the 1970s wages were kept stagnant in rich countries because of, first, the fact that the Information and Communication Technology Revolution proved to be highly capital using, opening room for a new wage of substitution of capital for labor; second, the new competition coming from developing countries; third, the emergence of the technobureaucratic or professional class; and, fourth, the new power of the neoliberal class coalition associating rentier capitalists and financiers