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Restructuring the Brazilian economy, 1979-1985: A "quasi-Australian model"

Gregor H Binkert Stanford University

Dissertation Abstracts International 53-03A.

1992

Localização: FEA - Fac. Econ. Adm. Contab. e Atuária  ACERVO DELFIM NETTO  (B17.22.32 )(Acessar)

  • Título:
    Restructuring the Brazilian economy, 1979-1985: A "quasi-Australian model"
  • Autor: Gregor H Binkert
  • Stanford University
  • Assuntos: Economics, General; Economics, Theory; Economics, Agricultural; ECONOMIA (TEORIA); ECONOMIA AGRÍCOLA
  • É parte de: Dissertation Abstracts International 53-03A.
  • Notas: Thesis (Ph.D.)--Stanford University, 1992.
  • Descrição: The main objective of the dissertation is to analyze the period of 1979-85 when Brazil switched from import-substituting industrialization to export promotion in the context of the external debt crisis. The analysis is based on an open-economy model in the tradition of the Australian school with tradable and a nontradable sectors. The model is extended to analyze the situation where the supply of nontradables becomes a binding constraint due to a high real exchange rate regime. In that case, separability of production and consumption decisions no longer holds. Furthermore, if the utility function is non-homothetic, then changes in relative prices have consequences for the distribution of income. Empirically the dissertation tests the implications of the model, rather than estimating the model and its parameters directly. The changes in Brazil's internal relative prices in favor of export production between 1979-85 have been substantial.
    It is also shown that resources were shifted rapidly from the nontradable into the tradable sectors in that period. The analysis of policy instruments determining the real exchange rate shows a significant negative correlation between wages and the real exchange rate, and a significant positive correlation between devaluation of the nominal exchange rate and the real exchange rate. The correlation is stronger between (unskilled) nontradable wages and the real exchange rate, rather than between wages in the tradable sector and the real exchange rate. Changes in real wages and in the size distribution of income are analyzed for the period under consideration. Wages in the tradable sector gained, while wages in the nontradable sector lost in relative as well as absolute terms. Since nontradable wages also represent the wage of unskilled labor, this implies that the poor lost in relation to the middle class (skilled labor).
    A similar picture emerges from the analysis of changes in the size distribution of income. Even though no formal test of causality is made, the evidence suggests the possibility that the export promotion policies of the Brazilian government led to welfare losses and had negative consequences for income distribution.
  • Data de criação/publicação: 1992
  • Formato: 257 p.
  • Idioma: Inglês

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