Brazil’s Northeast Financing Constitutional Fund: Differentiated effects on municipal economic growth

This article investigates the effects of the investments made by the Northeast Financing Constitutional Fund (FNE) on the economic growth of that region's municipalities in the decade of 2000. To that end, it uses an empirical framework based on growth models that make it possible to form convergence clubs according to the municipalities' initial development level. The results corroborate the empirical strategy and reveal the existence of four groups of municipalities, in which investment flows through the FNE have different effects on growth. In general, the FNE produces positive and significant effects in most municipalities of the Northeast, except for those whose gross domestic product (GDP) per capita was either very low or very high at the start of the decade, in which case its effects are not significant.

Economic growth, urbanization and social inequality: Reflections on the conservative Modernization

China is now facing a sudden change of redistribution of population in space as her urban population exceeds rural population. It seems necessary to learn others’ lessons by analyzing the urbanization of other developing countries, especially Brazil’s. To an extent, Brazil and some other developing countries have been unsuccessful in coordination for urbanization and improving living quality. The megacities in Latin America are the examples of swollen cities, and large groups excluded from the system of public services. It reflects in both short of infrastructures in many areas and high-levels of violence unique in the big cities in Latin America. Then the author summarizes Brazil’s lessons. Firstly, he describes the determinants in Brazil’s urbanization, especially the industrialization between 1930 and 1980. Secondly, the incentives for internal migration are analyzed, especially the industrial centralization in the southeast and the recessions in other areas. Finally, the characteristics of the present round of absorption of labor and the roots for the severe social inequality are discussed.

Inovação, competição internacional e transição hegemônica: a política científico-tecnológica dos Estados Unidos para evitar o declínio no século XXI

Pós-graduação em Relações Internacionais (UNESP - UNICAMP - PUC-SP) - FFC

A NEO-KALECKIAN MODEL OF PROFIT SHARING, CAPACITY UTILIZATION AND ECONOMIC GROWTH

This paper sets forth a Neo-Kaleckian model of capacity utilization and growth with distribution featuring a profit-sharing arrangement. While a given proportion of firms compensate workers with only a base wage, the remaining proportion do so with a base wage and a share of profits. Consistent with the empirical evidence, workers hired by profit-sharing firms have a higher productivity than their counterparts in base-wage firms. While a higher profit-sharing coefficient raises capacity utilization and growth irrespective of the distribution of compensation strategies across firms, a higher frequency of profit-sharing firms does likewise only if the profit-sharing coefficient is sufficiently high.

Financial Development and Economic Growth: Time Series Evidence from Albania

The main objective of this thesis is to explore the short and long run causality patterns in the finance – growth nexus and finance-growth-trade nexus before and after the global financial crisis, in the case of Albania. To this end we use quarterly data on real GDP, 13 proxy measures for financial development and the trade openness indicator for the period 1998Q1 – 2013Q2 and 1998Q1-2008Q3. Causality patterns will be explored in a VAR-VECM framework. For this purpose we will proceed as follows: (i) testing for the integration order of the variables; (ii) cointegration analysis and (iii) performing Granger causality tests in a VAR-VECM framework. In the finance-growth nexus, empirical evidence suggests for a positive long run relationship between finance and economic growth, with causality running from financial development to economic growth. The global financial crisis seems to have not affected the causality direction in the finance and growth nexus, thus supporting the finance led growth hypothesis in the long run in the case of Albania. In the finance-growth-trade openness nexus, we found evidence for a positive long run relationship the variables, with causality direction depending on the proxy used for financial development. When the pre-crisis sample is considered, we find evidence for causality running from financial development and trade openness to economic growth. The global financial crisis seems to have affected somewhat the causality direction in the finance-growth-trade nexus, which has become sensible to the proxy used for financial development. On the short run, empirical evidence suggests for a clear unidirectional relationship between finance and growth, with causality mostly running from economic growth to financial development. When we consider the per-crisis sub sample results are mixed, depending on the proxy used for financial development. The same results are confirmed when trade openness is taken into account.

Mobile goes global: The effect of cell phones on economic growth and development

This study investigates the effect of cell phones on economic development and growth by performing an econometric analysis using data from the International Telecommunications Union and the Penn World Table. It discusses the various ways cell phones can make markets more efficient and how the diffusion of information andknowledge plays into development. Several approaches (OLS, Fixed Effects, 2SLS) were used to test over 20 econometric models. Overall, the mobile cellular subscriptions rate was found to have a positive and significant impact on countries’ level of real per capitaGDP and GDP growth rate. Furthermore, the study provides policy implications for the use of technology to promote global growth.

The Impact of Foreign Direct Investment on Economic Growth

Over the past four decades, the number of democracies in the world has increased exponentially. This project considers how democracy and FDI affect economic growth as well as whether the impact of FDI depends on the level of democracy in a country. Thus, I explore two major research questions: 1) Whether increased FDI speeds up economic growth, controlling for political regime type, urbanization and other developmental indicators; and 2) Whether an increase in political freedom helps or hinders economic growth, and specifically whether the impact of FDI varies depending on the political regime in the recipient country. To examine these questions, this paper used data from 150 countries over a period between 1980 and 2010 and utilized several models, testing variables such as institutions, agglomerations, urbanization, FDI and type of political regime, among others, for their impact on economic growth. I found that FDI does have a positive impact on economic growth, and that this impact is often magnified when it interacts with other relevant factors. I also found that, after controlling for other variables, FDI inflows do not have a different impact on economic growth in autocracies than they do in democracies. This may be partially explained by autocratic outliers such as China and the OPEC states, which have recently experienced rapid export-led growth. This suggests that factors such as education could have a greater impact on a country¿s economic growth than does its political system.