The deindustrialization of the Brazilian economy: new evidences and the role of 1990s productive restructuring in this process

Abstract

ABSTRACT The study brings new interpretations about the phenomenon of Brazilian deindustrialization. From a perspective that has been used recently, the Marxian analysis associated with the inter-regional input-output analysis, we sought to understand how manufacturing lost space in the dynamization of Brazil’s economy. Presenting a critique of the use of relative manufacturing employment as an indicator of deindustrialization and understanding deindustrialization as a loss of manufacturing participation in the process of reproduction of capital on an expanded scale in a national economy, the domestic and foreign components of manufacturing backward multipliers were analyzed. In line which the literature, the main results indeed point to the existence of deindustrialization in the period between 1995 and 2010. In turn, as a new element raised from the discussion of the results in light of current literature, the hypothesis raised was that the deindustrialization resulted from the productive restructuring process that occurred in Brazil from the 1990s onwards.