Brazilian Economic Development Research Articles

Antropometria nutricional de adolescentes de uma região brasileira de baixo desenvolvimento econômico: comparação com referência OMS-2007.

The identification of nutritional inadequacies in specific segments of the youth population can provide the basis for public health intervention. The objective of this study was to evaluate anthropometric indicators of nutritional status in a sample of adolescent schoolchildren from a region of low economic development in Brazil. The sample consisted of 1,538 subjects ranging in age from 15 to 18 years, including 1,036 girls and 502 boys. Nutritional status was assessed based on height and body mass index (BMI) and comparisons were made to the corresponding percentile distributions of the Word Health Organizations-2007 (WHO-2007) reference. The percentile distributions for height and BMI in the two genders differed significantly from the WHO-2007 reference. There was a high proportion of adolescents with short height (< 10th percentile) and indication of overweight/obesity (> 90th percentile). Therefore, although being a region of low economic growth and with one of the lowest social indicators in the country, excess body weight was an important problem associated with nutritional status. The high proportion of overweight/obesity highlights the need to implement public policies designed to promote healthy eating habits and physical activity

Política industrial e desenvolvimento econômico: a reatualização de um debate histórico

Industrial policy and economic development: a review of the contemporary debate. This paper discusses the importance of the industrial policy for the Brazilian economic development. It presents the theoretical foundations and the main international experiences about this theme. Besides it examines the main industrial policies adopted in Brazil, especially in recent years. Based on this discussion, it is possible to note that despite the criticisms against this policy, they were widely used by many developed countries in the past and also played an important role, contributing to increase the industrial growth in Brazil. However, the recent Brazilian industrial policies were not so efficient, especially when compared with those adopted during most of the 20th century.

Health and Economic Development in Brazil: Analysis of Public Health Expenditure in Brazil Between 1930-1964

Resumo O objetivo deste artigo e analisar o debate sobre a relacao saude/desenvolvimento economico, no curso de 1930-1964. Pretendemos mostrar que, especialmente a partir da decada de 1950, a hegemonia das ideias desenvolvimentistas implicaram em uma mudanca significativa no discurso sobre as despesas publicas de saude, o que refletiu diretamente nos recursos gerenciados para esta area. Palavras-chave: Saude, populismo, despesa publica, desenvolvimentismo, Politica Social Normal 0 21 false false false PT-BR X-NONE X-NONE

Residual feed intake: a nutritional tool for genetic improvement

The goal of this bibliographical study was to provide information about residual feed intake (RFI), a new criterion used in the selection of beef cattle for growth rate, food ingestion, and feed efficiency. RFI is calculated as the difference between real consumption and the quantity of food an animal is expected to eat based on its mean live weight and rate of weight gain. In studies of RFI, many speculations are made among researchers about the reliability of this criterion. However, there is a high genetic correlation with characteristics related to post-weaning consumption and maturity, indicating that the biological processes that regulate consumption and efficiency in young animals are similar to the processes that regulate consumption and efficiency in animals of greater age. In contrast to feed conversion, selection based on RFI seems to select for lower rates of consumption and lower animal maintenance requirements without changing adult weight or weight gain. Therefore, we conclude that the data indicate that there are extraordinary benefits to be gained from changing the goals of selection from increased weight gain to improved nutritional efficiency. Given the importance of animal production for economic development in Brazil choosing the best selection goals for livestock improvement is essential. To include an index of feed efficiency in future goals would be desirable, and RFI may play a part in this if economic methods of implementation can be developed.

A avaliação de impacto ambiental e a responsabilidade do Brasil diante da degradação ao meio ambiente

A Avaliação de Impacto Ambiental surgiu como resposta jurídica para o desenvolvimento econômico dos Estados alinhado a uma proteção ambiental de seus recursos naturais, sendo hoje tida como um dos principais instrumentos do Direito Ambiental, tanto na esfera interna quanto internacional. Ocorre que com a alteração da classificação do desenvolvimento econômico brasileiro de país subdesenvolvido para Estado em desenvolvimento, a avaliação de impacto ambiental passou a ser cada vez mais necessária, porém nem sempre observada em seus resultados quanto à concessão da licença ambiental, o que pode ocasionar prejuízos para as gerações futuras.

Industrialization Lessons from Brics: A Comparative Analysis

To date there has been few systematic and comparative empirical analyses of the nature of economic development in Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS). We contribute to addressing this gap by exploring the patterns of structural change between 1980 and 2010, focusing on the manufacturing sector. We show that three of the BRICS are experiencing de-industrialization (Brazil, Russia and South Africa). China is the only country where an expanding manufacturing sector accounts for a significant part of aggregate growth. We explore the differences in patterns and causes of manufacturing between China and the other BRICS. These differences are down to differences in industrial policy: in China industrial policy supported both foreign and domestic investment for technological catch-up. It is the only country where FDI favoured the manufacturing sector and manufactured exports, and where domestic investment started becoming increasingly important compared to FDI from 1995 onward.

BNDES e o financiamento do desenvolvimento

Este artigo tem dois objetivos. Inicialmente, procura recuperar as principais teses contidas na bibliografia referente ao Banco Nacional do Desenvolvimento Econômico e Social (BNDES) e seu papel histórico no financiamento do desenvolvimento socioeconômico brasileiro. O segundo objetivo é analisar a perspectiva do financiamento em longo prazo no País e qual será o papel futuro do BNDES nesse cenário. Inovações financeiras recentes transferiram o financiamento de longo prazo para fora dos balanços dos bancos em direção às carteiras de ativos dos fundos gestores de riqueza. A hipótese-chave é que o atual padrão de financiamento em longo prazo brasileiro deverá, nos próximos anos, sofrer alterações, aproximando-se, embora de forma própria, ao que já se vem praticando em outros países. Isso obrigará a uma mudança no comportamento dos principais atores desse mercado, destacadamente, na atuação do BNDES. Tal perspectiva deveria mudar o rumo do debate acadêmico, hoje, muito polarizado ideologicamente.

Os pilares institucionais da política cambial e a industrialização nos anos 1930

The Institutional pillars of the foreign exchange policy and industrialization in Brazil in the 1930s. The 1930s constitute one milestone in the Brazilian economic development, as the accelerated industrialization process has started and became the dominant domestic policy. This paper reviews this period focusing on the institutional changes restructuring exchange transactions, to curb financial flows and balance external payments

Land institutions and supply chain configurations as determinants of soybean planted area and yields in Brazil

Soybean production has become a significant force for economic development in Brazil. It has also received considerable attention from environmental and social non-governmental organizations as a driver of deforestation and land consolidation. While many researchers have examined the impacts of soybean production on human and environmental landscapes, there has been little investigation into the economic and institutional context of Brazilian soybean production or the relationship between soy yields and planted area. This study examines the influence of land tenure, land use policy, cooperatives, and credit access on soy production in Brazil. Using county level data we provide statistical evidence that soy planted area and yields are higher in regions where cooperative membership and credit levels are high, and cheap credit sources are more accessible. This result suggests that soybean production and profitability will increase as supply chain infrastructure improves in the Cerrado and Amazon biomes in Brazil. The yields of competing land uses, wheat, coffee, and cattle production and a complementary use, corn production, also help to determine the location of soybean planted area in Brazil. We do not find a significant relationship between land tenure and planted area or land tenure and yields. Soy yields decline as transportation costs increase, but planted area as a proportion of arable land is highest in some of the areas with very high transportation costs. In particular, counties located within Mato Grosso and counties within the Amazon biome have a larger proportion of their arable, legally available land planted in soy than counties outside of the biome. Finally, we provide evidence that soy yields are positively associated with planted area, implying that policies intending to spare land through yield improvements could actually lead to land expansion in the absence of strong land use regulations. While this study focuses on Brazil, the results underscore the importance of understanding how supply chains influence land use associated with cash crops in other countries.

The importance of the manufacturing sector for Brazilian economic development

This article, based on Kaldor’s model of the stages of development, concludes that, despite having modernized thanks to the economic liberalization process, the evolution of Brazil’s industrial structure has increased the share of low-technology goods in the production matrix. The trend appreciation of the real in the initial phase of economic liberalization was positive for modernizing Brazil’s technology stock; but its continuation in recent years, when there has been ample international liquidity for emerging countries, threatens the development of the national manufacturing sector. This sector could suffer a technological setback, which, according to the principle of circular cumulative causation, diminishes its capacity to forge links with other sectors of activity, and accentuates the economy’s long-term external dependency.

O presidente desiludido: a campanha liberal e o pêndulo de política econômica no governo Dutra (1942-1948)

O artigo pretende discutir o contexto político e ideológico da opção do governo Dutra pela liberalização cambial, mostrando que se vinculava a um programa de estabilização e desenvolvimento de corte liberal, mas que não pretendia restaurar a chamada "vocação agrária" exportadora do país. A seguir, demonstra que a restauração de controles cambiais, depois da crise cambial de 1947, se fez, ao contrário do que é aceito, de maneira consciente de seus benefícios para a substituição de importações — consciência induzida pelo fracasso da liberalização comercial e divulgada em parte para neutralizar críticas da oposição varguista, que apontava os riscos da abertura comercial e financeira para o desenvolvimento econômico do Brasil.

Industrialização e desenvolvimento: uma análise do pensamento econômico brasileiro

Este artigo recupera os elementos essenciais do debate sobre o papel do processo de industrialização para o desenvolvimento econômico brasileiro. O artigo analisa diversos momentos deste debate, desde suas origens até as recentes discussões sobre a desindustrialização. Argumenta-se que a evolução do tema influencia e é influenciada pelas condições históricas vigentes. Sua conclusão central é que o debate é profundamente marcado pelos diferentes pontos de partida teóricos e metodológicos adotados pela literatura

Overcoming the "impossible trinity": towards a mix of macroeconomic policy instruments for sustaining economic development in Brazil

s: This paper has three main objectives: first, to support the view that, despite recognizing that the policy space for assuring both the internal and external stability is sharply reduced when the “balance of payments dominance” prevails in some open emerging economies like Brazil, even when it is possible to overcome the so-called “impossible trinity”, that is, the supposed impossibility of simultaneously guaranteeing the three goals of economic policy in a country with a floating exchange rate regime: price stability, exchange rate stability and (at least, relatively) free capital mobility; second, to argue that not only the pursuance of the exchange rate stability, but also the targeting of the so-called long-term “optimal” real exchange rate an original concept that was introduced by two other academic colleagues and I (see Nassif, Feijo and Araujo, 2011) and will be defined ahead should be in the current agenda of the Brazilian policy-makers; and third, the main economic policy implication we can draw from the previous Sections are that, instead of a narrow macroeconomic policy as that which prevailed throughout the 2000s in Brazil, policy-makers should urgently mirror most well succeeded Asian countries and adopt a mix of short and long-term economic policy instruments in order to both avoid the “balance of payments dominance” and assure a sustainable long-term economic growth .

Heloisa Alberto Torres e o inquérito nacional sobre ciências naturais e antropológicas, 1946

O objetivo do trabalho é analisar um documento elaborado pela então diretora do Museu Nacional do Rio de Janeiro, Heloisa Alberto Torres (1895-1977), que propôs fazer um estudo sobre o estado das ciências naturais e da antropologia com a finalidade de reestruturar a pesquisa científica em função do desenvolvimento econômico, político e social do Brasil. O documento foi enviado ao reitor da Universidade do Brasil, Pedro Calmon (1902-1985), em 1946, ao fim do Estado Novo e da Segunda Guerra Mundial, quando a diretora foi reempossada no cargo que exercia desde 1938. De acordo com o documento, o papel político das ciências naturais e da antropologia deveria ser exercido nos marcos teóricos da Ecologia, que se chocavam, no entanto, com as demandas políticas de exploração desmedida dos recursos naturais. As ideias da diretora do Museu Nacional acabaram por se limitar a projetos institucionais, levados a efeito pela política internacional de cooperação científica, que facilitou a circulação dos cientistas e beneficiou a pesquisa com financiamento interno e externo.

Межрегиональная дифференциация в странах БРИК: возможности оценки

In the paper, actual approaches of Regional Accounts elaboration in BRICs are examined, including a comparison of international and domestic practices. In view of foreign experience, possible directions of the Russian statistics development are presented for a more comprehensive illustration of the processes ongoing in economies of separate regions and the country's spatial macroeconomics. Common analysis of inter-regional differentiation by size and level of regional economic development in Brazil, Russia, India and China, with allowance for national specificity of Regional Accounts indicators estimations is provided.

Muito além da especialização regressiva e da doença holandesa: oportunidades para o desenvolvimento brasileiro

O desenvolvimento econômico brasileiro não pode depender exclusivamente de fontes de demanda externa; e não deve depender, com mais forte razão, de uma fonte associada à demanda chinesa por matérias-primas e produtos com forte intensidade de recursos naturais. Mas é necessário ter em mente que essa demanda tem oferecido uma fonte de estímulo importante para o crescimento e para a melhoria das relações de troca. O desafio, portanto, é integrar a demanda chinesa e os seus efeitos diretos e indiretos na estratégia nacional de desenvolvimento.

A CONTRIBUIÇÃO DA IIRSA NA RETOMADA DOS INVESTIMENTOS EM INFRA-ESTRUTURA, REDUÇÃO DOS GARGALOS LOGÍSTICOS E INCREMENTO DA ATIVIDADE EXPORTADORA

The purpose of this article is to discuss the IRSA (South America’s Infra-structure Regional Integration) and its contribution for the Brazilian Economic and Social Development, regarding the investments on infra-structure in areas such as engineering, transportation and telecommunication, the reduction of the logistic problems as well as the encouragement of the foreign trades activities, in special, the Brazilian Export of Services.

Die Brahma-Brauerei und die Modernisierung des Getränkehandels in Rio de Janeiro 1888 bis 1930

This study by German historian Edgar Köb is about beer and other beverages in Greater Rio de Janeiro between 1888 and 1930. Köb’s general description of the consumption market for beer and other beverages in Rio and his specific analysis of the Brahma brewery’s marketing strategies are solidly grounded in archival material and other primary documents. He considers beer production, marketing, and consumption an important component of Rio’s modernizing process. This process started, according to Köb, with the end of slavery and the monarchy in 1888 – 89. He suggests that 1930 — when the nationalist military broke down the “Old Republic” and the world depression stagnated Brazilian economic development — marked another transition.Köb sheds light on the urban-development process and its parallels with changes in beverage consumption patterns. Cariocas consumed alcoholic drinks like wine, aguardente, cachaça, and beer. Whereas aguardente enjoyed consistent popularity during the nineteenth century, demand for beer rose only starting in the 1870s. He concludes that as consumers drank less Portuguese (and sometimes also French and Italian) wine, demand for beer increased. However, Köb fails to prove his substitution thesis. Did former wine drinkers now prefer beer, or did the increase in beer consumption reflect emerging new social or cultural groups? While beer was imported from Great Britain in the first half of the nineteenth century, German imports rose in the second half, and increasing quantities of local product slaked the thirst of the lower classes. Beer was a leisure beverage for all social groups. Men drank beer in bars, cafés, brothels, theaters, and restaurants, whereas they drank aguardente, cachaça, and cheap Portuguese wine in traditional small shops (vendas) and general stores (armazens). Breweries tried to penetrate these drinking places using credit programs.In the third and last chapter, Köb describes the rise of the Brahma brewery, founded by a Swiss engineer in 1888 and from 1894 onward owned by German immigrants. The German owners modernized production, especially after an expert’s disastrous hygiene report in 1908. Here, it seems to me that Köb underestimates the problems of access to high-quality drinking water and other inputs. Yet, the quality of the production process became a selling point in ad campaigns. In the second decade of twentieth century, the Brahma brewery started to penetrate the popular classes successfully with secondary products. The management of this enterprise tried to promote different sorts of beer with posters, calendars, postcards, ashtrays, and so on. But although the company spent a considerable amount of money on these campaigns, it still did not function as a fully modern and professionalized commercial venture.This is, no doubt, an important study on the rise and transformation of a beverage consumption market. Students of Latin American history and investigators of Rio de Janeiro’s consumption history will find it rewarding. However, it is troubling that Köb’s work is neither clearly focused on the development of the beverage market in general nor on Brahma beer in particular. It remains unclear whether he wants to show a general development using the Brahma enterprise as an illustrative example or wants to present his overview of Rio’s beverage consumption market as background for his study on Brahma. Nonetheless, I agree with Köb’s judgment that his book is just the beginning of a very intriguing field of investigation.

Institutions and economic development in Brazil

This paper investigates the effects of institutional reforms in Brazil. It first provides a comparative assessment of the level of institutional development of Brazil with other Latin American countries such as Chile and Argentina. It considers institutional indicators on “ doing private business”, including those related to the start up costs, employment rigidity, the expropriation of private investment and bankruptcy law. In general, Brazil presents a lower level of institutional development than Chile and Argentina. As an example, the number of procedures to start a business in Brazil is roughly twice as large as in Chile. We evaluate the importance of institutional differences on economic development using data for a wide cross-section of countries. As in Acemoglu, Johnson, and Robinson [Acemoglu, D., Johnson, S., & Robinson, J. A. (2001). The colonial origins of comparative development: An empirical investigation. American Economic Review, 91(5), 1369–1398], we use the European mortality rate in the colonial period and the “legal origin” to exploit exogenous variation in the level of institutions. We identify issues where institutional reforms are likely to significantly affect per capita gross domestic product (GDP), the ratio of private credit to GDP and the ratio of investment to GDP. We then construct three indices developed in Tavares [Tavares, J. (2004). Institutions and economic growth in Portugal: a quantitative exploration. Portuguese Economic Journal, 3, 49–79] that measure the potential of institutional reforms by using institutional distance, in our case between Brazil and Chile. The most promising reforms for the Brazilian economy, as far as their effects on output per capita, are, in decreasing order: (i) reducing the number of procedures to open a business; (ii) decreasing the average time involved in insolvency proceedings; (iii) increasing labor market flexibility; and (iv) increase effective creditor's protection.

Dutra's World:Wealth and Family in Nineteenth‐Century Rio de Janeiro

The relation of slavery to Brazil's economic and social history has long fascinated researchers. Zephyr Frank focuses on nineteenth-century Rio de Janeiro, where almost half of the city's residents laboured as slaves of diverse owners in a complex urban setting. Slavery persisted in the Brazilian city, in part, because it was entrenched among upwardly mobile entrepreneurs who hired their slaves out for wages, employed them in family businesses, and bought and sold them for profit. Changes in the institution of slavery and the economy of the city gradually limited access to slaves, constricting avenues of social mobility for slaveholders and transforming the lives of the slaves themselves. Frank uses the experiences of one person, Antonio Jose Dutra, as an example of a middling urban slaveholder. Dutra, a former slave himself, owned thirteen slaves whom he employed in his barbering business and musical band. Dutra's story is part of the larger picture Frank paints of those who owned slaves, how they fit into the social and economic development of Brazil, and what slaves and their owners did as slavery rose and then gradually declined in Rio de Janeiro. Frank traces social mobility, race, class, and slaveholding patterns, basing his analysis on inheritance records. Rich in detail, these records reveal layers of historical meaning regarding the accumulation of wealth, social mobility, family ties, and the social and cultural practices surrounding death.