Uma interpretação das causas da desaceleração econômica do Brasil

The paper aims at explaining why Brazil's GDP growth plunged after 1980. Brazil's GDP grew at 7% yearly from 1940 to 1980 but at only 2.5% per year since then. Increases in the relative price of investment that reduced the purchasing power of savings, associated to declines in the productivity of capital, seem to have been the most important factors behind the observed loss of dynamism. The tentative conclusion is that inward-oriented economic policies since the 1970s and, perhaps, even as early as the 1950s, had negative long-run growth implications that were aggravated by populist policies in the early years of the post-1984 redemocratization.

Mudança em tempos de globalização: o capitalismo não é mais progressista?

Technical progress and economic development are promotions of capitalism, says a well known idea hereby contradicted. Recent changes under neoliberalism show that the more freedom of move to capital the less development of productive forces. There was no synchronicity and coherence fostering economic growth between changes at the micro level of techno-productive and managerial innovations and the ones at the macro level of institutional structures and economic policy. Empowerment of finance capital and monopolies got them opportunity to control the state and set its economic policy to support fictitious capital accumulation and to rule restructuring of corporate management. Surplus redistribution favoring finance capital is a burden to be carried on the back of society's productive structures, lowering investment, employment and growth. Focusing Latin America and Brazil, the same picture is seen, worsened by external fragility that deepens historical dependency.

Relação entre mercado de terras, crescimento econômico e insegurança fundiária explicada por um modelo a "geração imbricada"

In this paper, we analyze the relationship between the land market failures and the economic growth in Brazil, starting from an overlapping model including two sectors: agricultural and industrial. The land is both a specific factor for agriculture and an asset that can be substituted to the capital used in industry. The trade-off between land and capital holding depends, among other factors, on the transaction costs on the land market. These costs result from land insecurity and generate a decrease in the land price that favors capital accumulation. Two assumptions follow from our model: one the one hand, land insecurity has a negative effect on the land price; one the other hand it has a positive effect on economic growth. These two hypotheses are tested on panel data for Brazilian Federation. The econometric results do not reject our hypothesis.

Por que a poupança externa não promove crescimento

Why foreign saving fail to cause growth. The present paper is a formalization of the critique of the growth with foreign savings strategy. Although medium income countries are capital poor, current account deficits (foreign savings), financed either by loans or by foreign direct investments, will not usually increase the rate of capital accumulation or will have little impact on it in so far as current account deficits will be associated with appreciated exchange rates, artificially increased real wages and salaries and high consumption levels. In consequence, the rate of substitution of foreign savings for domestic savings will be relatively high, and the country will get indebted to consume, not to invest and grow. Only when there are large investment opportunities, stimulated by a sizeable difference between the expected profit rate and the long term interest rate, the marginal propensity to consume will get down enough so that the additional income originated from foreign capital flows will be used for investment rather than for consumption. In this special case, the rate of substitution of foreign for domestic savings tend to be small, and foreign savings will contribute positively to growth.

From the 'Miracle' to the 'Lost Decade': intersectoral transfers and external credit in the Brazilian economy

The present paper examines the Brazilian experience from the 'Economic Miracle' to the 'Lost Decade'. Its aim is to advance an alternative measurement of the flows of extraordinary wealth (i.e. ground-rent and net external credit) available for appropriation in the Brazilian economy and to asses their relevance in sustaining the process of accumulation of industrial capital. That is done in order to provide further and more accurate evidence to the claim that the evolution of the Brazilian process of capital accumulation has been extremely dependent on the evolution of those masses of extraordinary wealth.

Celso Furtado, o retorno à polêmica fundamental

Celso Furtado, the return to the basic controversy. A reading of the work of Celso Furtado in its completion opens an enriching view of the interaction between theoretical thinking and the unveiling of Latin-America history. Starting from an appraisal of the pre-Classic and Classic authors, Furtado outlined an approach of surplus theory. That would enable development theory to deal with the unevenly industrialized economies like Brazil. His thorough analysis of development and underdevelopment processes broke away from the initial ECLA experiences to build a planning proposal the uprising country. The French roots of his academic profile helped him to keep an orderly explanation of capital demand that kept him siding with Wicksell against the subjective theory of Schumpeter.

Finance-Led Growth Regime no Brasil: estatuto teórico, evidências empíricas e consequências macroeconômicas

This paper analyzes the Brazilian growth pattern during the post-liberalization period, emphasizing the structural links between finance and productive capital accumulation. The results indicate a finance-led growth regime in the period 2004-2008, under a very specific financialization process. The first part is a survey of the international literature, which defines the financialization concept and its relevance for understanding Brazilian economic problems. The next part provides a historical overview on the structural changes that made possible the development of financial-led regimes. The paper also applies an empirical analysis of some selected Brazilian macroeconomic indicators.

The Brazilian deindustrialization: financialization is not guilty

The financialization of the Brazilian economy is often criticized as being responsible of the slowdown of capital accumulation in this country. Indeed, very high interest rates are maintained in order to finance the public debt, and this fosters capitalists to get more Treasury bonds rather than to invest in the productive area. Nevertheless, the evolution of the profit rate in this area also explains the particular relation existing between capitalists, finance and productive investment, as Marx showed it more than a century ago.

The boom and crisis of the Convertibility Plan in Argentina

This article analyses the relationship between state policies and economy in Argentina 1991-2001. In 1991 the currency board regime named 'convertibility' was implemented, within the framework of important neoliberal reforms introduced by the State. These neoliberal reforms facilitated capitalist restructuring, characterized by a leap in productivity, investment and profits. Likewise, these reforms generated imbalances which, along with the changes in the world market conditions from 1998, led to the deepest crisis in Argentina's history. The inefficiency of state neoliberal policies in managing the crisis, based on fiscal adjustment to guarantee the continuity of external financing, led to an economic depression and a financial crash, sparking a mass rebellion and the end of convertibility.

From restrained golden age to creeping platinum age: A periodization of Latin American development in the Robinsonian tradition

ABSTRACTThis paper analyzes Joan Robinson's growth model, and then adapted in order to provide an exploratory taxonomy of Growth Eras. The Growth Eras or Ages were for Robinson a way to provide logical connections among output growth, capital accumulation, the degree of thriftiness, the real wage and illustrate a catalogue of growth possibilities. This modified taxonomy follows the spirit of Robinson's work, but it takes different theoretical approaches, which imply that some of her classifications do not fit perfectly the ones here suggested. Latin America has moved from a Golden Age in the 1950s and 1960s, to a Leaden Age in the 1980s, having two traverse periods, one in which the process of growth and industrialization accelerated in the late 1960s and early 1970s, which is here referred to as a Galloping Platinum Age, and one in which a process of deindustrialization, and reprimarization and maquilization of the productive structure took place, starting in the 1990s, which could be referred to as a Creeping Platinum Age.

Nature of the state economic expanded functions in the Brazilian economy*

ABSTRACT The paper discusses the dynamics of capital accumulation in Latin America economies. The hypothesis is that in these economies the role of the State is comparatively broader than in the economies of the centers of the capitalism by structural reasons. The argument is mainly based on Marx and Kalecki, besides historical elements of Latin America economies, particularly the Brazilian economy. Then the paper explores the dynamics consequences of this nature at the national levels, concluding that this condition gives a higher degree of instability.

How Important Are Intergenerational Transfers of Time? a Macroeconomic Analysis.

This paper examines the implications of intergenerational transfers of time and money for labor supply and capital accumulation. Although intergenerational transfers of time in the form of grandparenting are as substantial as monetary transfers in the data, little is known about the role and importance of time transfers. In this paper, we calibrate an overlapping generations model extended to allow for both time and monetary transfers to the US economy. We use simulations to show that time transfers have important positive effects on capital accumulation and that these effects can be as significant as those of monetary transfers. However, while time transfers increase the labor supply of the young, monetary transfers produce an income effect that tends to decrease work effort. We also find that child care tax credits have little impact on parental time and money transfers, but that a universal child tax credit would increase the welfare of the rich while the poor would benefit from a means-tested program.

Wage Policy of Firms: an Empirical Investigation.

This paper analyzes the dynamics of wages and workers' mobility within firms with a hierarchical structure of job levels. The theoretical model proposed by Gibbons and Waldman (1999), that combines the notions of human capital accumulation, job rank assignments based on comparative advantage and learning about workers' abilities, is implemented empirically to measure the importance of these elements in explaining the wage policy of firms. Survey data from the GSOEP (German Socio-Economic Panel) are used to draw conclusions on the common features characterizing the wage policy of firms from a large sample of firms. The GSOEP survey also provides information on the worker's rank within his firm which is usually not available in other surveys. The results are consistent with non-random selection of workers onto the rungs of a job ladder. There is no direct evidence of learning about workers' unobserved abilities but the analysis reveals that unmeasured ability is an important factor driving wage dynamics. Finally, job rank effects remain significant even after controlling for measured and unmeasured characteristics.

Legal Institutions, Sectoral Heterogeneity, and Economic Development

Poor countries have lower PPP–adjusted investment rates and face higher relative prices of investment goods. It has been suggested that this happens either because these countries have a relatively lower TFP in industries producing capital goods, or because they are subject to greater investment distortions. This paper provides a micro–foundation for the cross–country dispersion in investment distortions. We first document that firms producing capital goods face a higher level of idiosyncratic risk than their counterparts producing consumption goods. In a model of capital accumulation where the protection of investors’ rights is incomplete, this difference in risk induces a wedge between the returns on investment in the two sectors. The wedge is bigger, the poorer the investor protection. In turn, this implies that countries endowed with weaker institutions face higher relative prices of investment goods, invest a lower fraction of their income, and end up being poorer. We find that our mechanism may be quantitatively important.

La perception du prestige des occupations illicites par des délinquants : une perspective sur les capitaux criminels

Le prestige occupationnel est une mesure utilisée en sociologie des professions pour déterminer le statut social d’un emploi sous la forme d’un continuum hiérarchisé. Cette mesure peut être définie selon : le revenu, l’autorité, l’autonomie et les compétences. En ce basant sur des entrevues auprès de délinquants incarcérés (n=138), cette étude évalue si la notion de prestige s’applique aux occupations illicites. Les résultats suggèrent que les domaines d’activité des occupations illicites ne présentent pas d’homogénéité en termes de prestige. Certaines caractéristiques définissant le prestige des occupations licites, comme le revenu et la compétence, contribuent à définir le prestige des occupations illicites, par contre, l’autonomie et l’autorité n’y contribuent pas. Le milieu criminel présente des caractéristiques particulières comme la difficulté d’atteindre une continuité dans son occupation. Cette continuité explique le prestige des occupations illicites, mais non celui des occupations licites. D’autres indicateurs, comme le réseau criminel et la présence d’un mentor, influençant pourtant les revenus, n’ont pas d’impact sur le prestige des occupations illicite. Des modèles d’équations structurelles ont été utilisés pour vérifier les relations indirectes et les conversions entre les types de capitaux selon la théorie de l’espace social de Pierre Bourdieu. Ces analyses suggèrent l’essentialité de la notion de compétence et de continuité. La discussion et la conclusion élabore sur les notions de continuité, d’accumulation et de conversion de capital.