The truncated deindustrialization : perspectives of economic development / A desindustrialização truncada, perspectivas do desenvolvimento economico brasileiro

AUTOR(ES)
DATA DE PUBLICAÇÃO

2009

RESUMO

This thesis discusses the recent history and prospects of Brazilian economic development from the perspective of the industry. The central hypothesis is that Brazil has undergone a process of relative industrialization and that is the main cause of increasing the country’s distance with regard to the frontier of development. The destruction of the industry was only partial because the branches of the productive structure that had achieved some degree of maturity preserved its productive capacity, even losing important links in the chain. The detailed analysis of external trade in the light of more general conditions of the global market shows the decline of the importance of the Brazilian industry despite the increasing of manufacturing exports. The general sense of the data presented, which are sometimes contradictory or inconclusive, is based on several theoretical contributions that point to the two central propositions of the thesis: (i) economic development, defined as the progressive insertion of knowledge to production processes is inseparable from industrialization; (ii) the internalization of activities promoting development can not happen solely through market mechanisms, i.e. without the continued implementation of development policies. The analysis of the global market and the current discussion of the concepts of de-industrialization and deterioration of terms of trade made it possible to establish a typology of developing countries according to their ability to internalize industrial sectors. The industrial diversification until the early 1980’s, the survival of some of the instruments of industrial policy and some distinguishing features of the Brazilian economy prevented a widespread regression of the productive structure. But that was inadequate to guarantee a dynamic path as that of Asian countries that have kept the development process because the ambiguous nature of economic policy has not allowed the advance of industrial competitiveness with the exception of some sectors. The interruption of development is centrally related to this particular pattern of industrial restructuring resulting from Brazil’s inability to carry on incorporating dynamic industrial sectors through development policies. In the methodology, several problems had to be dealt with, sometimes from innovative solutions. It was created a synthetic indicator of economic development to make statistically robust the typology of trajectories of development. It was shown that in some indicators the changing boundaries between manufacturing and extractive industries can underrate de-industrialization. It was used an innovative methodology to measure the evolution of technological intensity of Brazilian industry that corroborates its regressive nature. Some calculating problems of the real exchange rate were examined in order to disqualify any favorable interpretation of industrial restructuring based on this variable. Another contribution is the inclusion of summary indicators that seek to measure the external trade performance in a global comparative perspective. Finally, the disaggregated data of the Brazilian foreign trade were treated in order to find the few sectors responsible for the improving of trade balance in the XXI century.

ASSUNTO(S)

industrialização - brasil manufacturing industries desenvolvimento economico - brasil industrias economic development

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