Search

The economic growth and development literature emphasizes that investment in technology and physical and human capital is essential for achieving higher levels of development. Political and economic institutions are also relevant in this process. With a sample of 5,503 Brazilian municipalities, this study carries out a development accounting exercise and measures the effects of institutional quality on per capita gross domestic product (GDP), physical capital intensity, human capital stock, and productivity. The empirical results indicate that institutional quality affects GDP per capita mainly through human capital accumulation and total factor productivity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – The Brazilian municipalities show a huge disparity in income level. The GDP per capita difference between the richest and the poorest municipalities is about 190 times, according to IBGE (2000) database. This paper aims to analyze the impacts of Brazilian municipalities institutional quality on their levels of per capita income. Design/methodology/approach – Institutionalist theory provides a plausible explanation for the gap among municipalities income level. Many empirical studies based on cross-country data have found a high correlation between institutional quality and the level of economic development, but there is little research concerning the extreme inequality within the national territory and its relationship with institutional quality. The theory suggests that the institutions matter for the level of economic development because of their effects on political power distribution, generation of economic opportunities, innovation, human capital accumulation, and so on. Findings – Overall, an increase by one point in the average quality of the institutions is able to increase the average GDP per capita around 20 percent. This means that each point of increase in the quality of the municipality institutions is able to increase the municipality GDP per capita by R$1,000 (around US$600). Originality/value – This is an important research that sheds light to the importance of institutional quality at local level and its influence over growth in a developing country. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Se describe la teoría del crecimiento impulsado por la demanda y se aporta evidencia de la existencia de un modelo semejante en la economía brasileña. A partir de la metodología desarrollada por Atesoglu (2002), se realizaron pruebas econométricas para corroborar la hipótesis de que la economía brasileña se basa en el crecimiento promovido por la demanda. Los resultados indican que prácticamente el 85% de la tasa de crecimiento del pib real en el período 1990-2005 se explica por variables de la demanda, principalmente las exportaciones y el consumo público. Dado que la actual crisis fiscal elimina la posibilidad de expansión fiscal, la única opción para el Brasil es adoptar un modelo de crecimiento impulsado por las exportaciones. En este artículo se demuestra también que el mantenimiento de un tipo de cambio real (TCR) devaluado es un factor importante para el incremento de las exportaciones en países en desarrollo como el Brasil. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Brazilian economy pulled by the aggregate demand. This article aims to present the demand-led growth theory and some empirical evidences for a demand-led growth regime in Brazil. First of all, we will do a brief review of the theory of demand led-growth, based in the seminal work of Kaldor (1988), for whom long-run growth is determined by the growth rate of consumption expenditures and the growth rate of exports. Based in the empirical methodology developed by Atesoglu (2002), we run some econometric tests for the hypothesis of demand-led growth for Brazilian economy. The results of such tests shown that near of 85% of GDP growth in Brazil in the period 1991-2005 is explained by variables at the demand side of the economy. Besides that, based in the methodology developed by Ledesma and Thirwall (2002), we shown that natural rate of growth for Brazilian economy is endogenous, increasing during boom times. This means that appears to be no restrictions in the supply side of the economy for a faster growth of Brazilian economy. Finally, we argue that a necessary condition for a sustained growth of Brazilian economy is the adoption of a export-led growth model. For such it is necessary to put an end on the actual over-valuation of real exchange rate [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]