From miracle to disaster Brazilian economy past 3 decades

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From a Miracle to a Disaster: The
Brazilian Economy in the Past 3 Decades*
Mirta N. S. Bugarin**
Roberto Ellery Jr.***
Victor Gomes****
Arilton Teixeira*****
Abstract
After showing a persistent and high growth rate since World War II, in the early 1980s,
the Brazilian growth rate of per capita GNP fell abruptly. In this paper, we assess
whether this fall can be explained by the behavior of technological progress (measured
by Total Factor Productivity or TFP ). We study the period between 1970 and 1998. We
divide this period into two subperiods. In the first, the 1970s, per capita GNP grew at
an average of 5.05% a year. In contrast with per capita GNP, TFP grew only until 1974,
declining in the rest of the decade. After 1974, the growth rate of per capita GNP was
sustained by an increasing investment as a share of GNP due to the increase in public
(government plus state-owned firms) and private investments sustained by government
subsidies that went from 1% to 4% of GNP in the second half of the 1970s. In the second
subperiod, the 1980s and 1990s, both TFP and per capita GNP decreased until 1993,
increasing thereafter. We also find in the second half of the 1980s that investment share
was increasing while TFP was decreasing. In this second case, it went up mainly as a
result of the higher cost of capital relative to consumption. Our main conclusion is that
the behavior of technological progress can fairly describe the dynamics of the Brazilian
economy during the period under study.
Keywords: Depression Analysis, Neoclassical Growth Model, Technological Progress.
JEL Codes: E27, E32, O40.
*Submitted in July 2010. Revised in August 2011. The views expressed herein are those of
the authors and not necessarily those of the Conselho Administrativo de Defesa Econoˆmica.
**Fucape Business School, Senior Researcher. E-mail: mirta@fucape.br
***Universidade de Brasilia, Department of Economics. E-mail: ellery@unb.br
****Conselho Administrativo de Defesa Econoˆmica (CADE), Department of Economic Studies
and Universidade de Brasilia, Department of Economics.
E-mail: victorgomes@unb.br
*****Fucape Business School. E-mail: arilton@fucape.br
Brazilian Review of Econometrics
v. 30, no 1, pp. 3–22 May 2010
Mirta N. S. Bugarin, Roberto Ellery Jr., Victor Gomes and Arilton Teixeira
1. Introduction
The performance of the Brazilian economy after World War II can be clearly
divided into two subperiods. In the first, which ends in the early 1980s, Brazil
was one of the world’s fastest growing economies (see, for example, Figure 1 for a
comparison with the leading economy in the past century). In the second, starting
in the early 1980s, the Brazilian economy plunged into a lengthy recession that
lasted until 1993 (see Bugarin et al., 2007). For instance, between 1968 and 1974,
the average growth rate of Brazil’s per capita GNP was 8.6% (this is equivalent
to the growth rate of China between 1978 and 1998. See Young (2003). The
1968-1974 period is termed by Brazilian economists as “The Brazilian Economic
Miracle.” The second subperiod (after the early 1980s) was one of stagnation
(see Bugarin et al., 2007). Between 1980 and 1998, the yearly growth rate of per
capita GNP was 0.28%. Moreover, the growth rate of Total Factor Productivity
(henceforth TFP ) was negative until 1993, when it started recovering.
In this paper we study the Brazilian economy from 1970 to 1998 through the
lens of the neoclassical growth model applied to the analysis of depressions. We
assess whether the boom and the depression of the Brazilian economy can be
explained by technological progress, measured by the growth rate of TFP (see
Cole and Ohanian (1999, 2004), Prescott (2002) and the volume edited by Kehoe
and Prescott (2007)). In comparison with Bugarin et al. (2007), in this project
we expand the analysis back to the 1970s, addressing the question of the fall of
productivity in 1973.1
Our main results are the following. In the first subperiod, the Brazilian econ-
omy grew during the whole time. But the engine of growth changed. From 1970
to 1974, TFP was the main growth engine. From 1974 to 1979, TFP decreased,
but the economy grew due to the increase in capital stock, driven by an increment
in public (government plus state-owned firms) and private investments.
Even though the Brazilian GNP per working age grew, on average, 5.05% in
the 1970s, TFP stopped growing in 1974, decreasing in the rest of the decade. To
sustain the growth rate without technological progress, the government increased
investment as a share of GNP, from 20% to 26% in the first half of the 1970s,
and from 26% to 32% in the second half. This increment was planned and imple-
mented by the government as part of its Second National Development Plan. The
investment share was increased directly by boosting public investments (govern-
ment plus government-owned enterprises), and indirectly by subsidizing private
investments (see Figures 8–9). Total government subsidies to the private sector
went from 1% to 4% in the 1970s, and due to this government behavior, our con-
clusion is that the Cass-Koopmans model has to be adapted to account for the
behavior of the Brazilian economy.
In the second subperiod (1980-1998), TFP decreased until 1993 and then
1This fact was first described by Gomes et al. (2003) and by Ferreira et al. (2008).
4 Brazilian Review of Econometrics 30(1) May 2010
From a Miracle to a Disaster: The Brazilian Economy in the Past 3 Decades
1950 1955 1960 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000
14
16
18
20
22
24
26
28
30
32
Years
Br
az
ilia
n 
pe
r c
ap
ita
 G
DP
 re
la
tiv
e 
to
 U
.S
. (%
)
Figure 1
Brazilian GDP Per Capita Relative to the US (in %)
started recovering. In this period, the Cass-Koopmans model could account rea-
sonably well for the behavior of the Brazilian economy. We should stress two
points with respect to this subperiod. First, hours worked differ from the model’s
prediction. Particularly after 1993, the model predicted that hours worked should
start increasing, but they did not. In fact, they kept decreasing until 1998. Second,
the price of structures relative to consumer goods increased sharply in the second
half of the 1980s. Our intuition for these facts is the following. First, the decline in
hours worked after 1993 can be due to the new Constitution (1988), which reduced
the workweek from 48 to 44 hours, and increased the tax on labor inputs – which
was implemented by the government in the early 1990s.2 Second, the increment
in the relative prices of structures (mainly real estate) can be explained by the
growing demand for risk-free assets. In the second half of the 1980s, a series of
currency stabilization plans (trying to control the spiraling inflation) repeatedly
changed the rules of the financial market. Besides, there was a presidential elec-
tion in 1989 and many candidates supported public debt default (which eventually
took place in March 1990). To protect themselves, investors started buying real
estate.
This study is organized as follows. Section 2 presents the Cass-Koopmans
model and computer simulations after calibrating the model using Brazilian data.
Sections 3 and 4 introduce changes in the benchmark case presented in Section 2
2See Gonzaga et al. (2003) for a more detailed analysis.
Brazilian Review of Econometrics 30(1) May 2010 5
Mirta N. S. Bugarin, Roberto Ellery Jr., Victor Gomes and Arilton Teixeira
to adapt it to the Brazilian case. Section 5 concludes.
2. The Neoclassical Model and the Brazilian Economy
In this section, we will run computer simulations using a version of the Cass-
Koopmans model of growth. We follow the approach developed by Kehoe and
Prescott (2002). Therefore, the data had to be detrended using the rate of tech-
nological progress of the U.S.
from 1930 to 2000, which averaged 1.44% per year.
There is a representative agent with perfect foresight about the exogenous
productivity shocks to the economy. The utility function of the representative
agent is given by
E
{
∞∑
t=0
[β(1 + η)]
t
[log(ct) + α log(1− ht)]
}
(1)
where ct is consumption at time t, ht is the amount of time allocated by a con-
sumer to market activities, and η is the population growth rate. Since there is no
distortion in our model economy, the allocation found in the competitive equilib-
rium is similar to the allocation found by the solution to the planner’s problem,
which is to maximize Equation 1 subject to
ct + kt+1 − (1− δ)kt = zt(1 + γ)
(1−θ)tkθt h
1−θ
t (2)
where θ is the capital share and zt(1 + γ)
(1−θ)t is the TFP. The TFP can be
separated into two parts. The first one is the growth rate, given by (1 + γ)(1−θ)t.
The second one, zt, is the productivity shock, whose law of motion is given by
zt+1 = 1− ρ+ ρzt + ǫt (3)
ǫt is assumed to be a white noise process and ρ ∈ (0, 1).
The next step is the calibration of our model using Brazilian data. In the
1950-1980 period, the population growth rate was η = 2.9% and, by following
the findings in Gollin (2002), we set θ = 0.35. We calibrate the growth rate of
technical progress (TFP) as γ = 1.3%. This value of γ is obtained according to a
2% trend of per working age GNP and a capital share in aggregate output of 35%
[i.e. (1.02)(1-0.35) = 1.013].
We also set the depreciation rate to 9%.3 Using Euler equation we get β = 0.9
for the average of the capital output ratio of 1.62, calculated for the 1970-1980
period. The stylized facts for the Brazilian economy show that agents spend 40%
of their total available time on market activities (see Bugarin et al., 2007). Using
this value in Euler equation for a 7-day workweek, we get α = 1.28. From an
estimation of an AR(1) regression in a detrended TFP , we get ρ = 0.97.
3The choice of the depreciation rate is controversial. For simplicity, we use a similar choice
made by several authors in Kehoe and Prescott’s (2007) volume.
6 Brazilian Review of Econometrics 30(1) May 2010
From a Miracle to a Disaster: The Brazilian Economy in the Past 3 Decades
To simulate the model, we set the initial values for the variables to their 1970
value. The results are shown in the figures. The dotted lines represent the data
whereas the bold lines represent the model’s simulation.
1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000
60
70
80
90
100
110
120
130
140
Years
19
70
 =
 1
00
Figure 2
Brazilian GNP Per Working Age: Data (..) and Model Economy (-) (Brazil 1970 –
2000)
By looking at Figures 2 and 3, we note that the Cass-Koopmans model cannot
account for the behavior of the Brazilian economy for the whole period. In partic-
ular, investment and capital stock go in the opposite direction from that predicted
by the model in the 1970s. Hours worked also show a discrepancy between the
model and the data in the second half of the 1980s.4
With respect to the observed series of hours worked, the interpretation of this
finding is not straightforward. A possibility we think should be considered is the
institutional framework introduced by the new Constitution of 1988. In particular,
a mandatory reduction in the workweek was introduced. Moreover, given the
objective of pursuing a more balanced public sector budget and a remarkable
decentralization of tax revenues brought about by the reformed Constitution, many
new contributions (taxes) were created from 1989 onward.5 These distortions
4To give a measure of how much the model can account for the data we did the following: we
ran a simple linear regression of each of the Brazilian series on their respective series generated
by the model. We used the adjusted R2 as this measure. For GNP, consumption, investment,
capital stock, and hours worked, the adjusted R2 was, respectively, 0.48, 0.75, 0.15, -0.03, and
0.35.
5At the federal level, there are two categories of levies – impostos, or taxes per se, and
Brazilian Review of Econometrics 30(1) May 2010 7
Mirta N. S. Bugarin, Roberto Ellery Jr., Victor Gomes and Arilton Teixeira
1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000
70
80
90
100
110
120
130
140
150
Consumption
Years
1
9
7
0
 =
 1
0
0
(a) Consumption (Brazil 1970 – 1998)
1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000
20
40
60
80
100
120
140
160
180
200
220
Investment
Years
1
9
7
0
 =
 1
0
0
(b) Investment (Brazil 1970 – 1998)
1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000
70
80
90
100
110
120
130
140
150
160
170
Capital
Years
1
9
7
0
 =
 1
0
0
(c) Capital (Brazil 1970 – 1998)
1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000
90
95
100
105
110
115
120
125
130
135
Hours
Years
1
9
7
0
 =
 1
0
0
(d) Hours Worked (Brazil 1970 – 1998)
Figure 3
Data (..) and Model Economy (-)
8 Brazilian Review of Econometrics 30(1) May 2010
From a Miracle to a Disaster: The Brazilian Economy in the Past 3 Decades
increased the taxation on labor inputs, as well as on labor income, even further,
affecting agents’ optimal intertemporal decisions. These changes in the tax system
increased Brazil’s overall tax burden as a proportion of GNP from 22.4% in 1988
to 31.7% in 1998.
To study the behavior of investment and capital stock, we divide the analysis
of the period into two subperiods: the 1970s on the one hand and the 1980s and
1990s on the other. To understand the behavior of investment in the 1970s, we
separate public investment (government plus state-owned firms) from the private
one. First, public investment increased in the second half of the 1970s, while
TFP decreased (see Figures 4 and 5). Second, private investment also increased
in the second half of the 1970s, while TFP declined (see Figures 4 and 5). We do
not want to explain public investment decisions, since the government does not
necessarily follow price signals. But private investment decisions do follow them.
To understand the behavior of private investment and make it compatible with the
Cass-Koopmans model, we need to look at subsidies. Government subsidies to the
private sector went from 1% to 4% of GNP in the 1970s (see Figure 9). This rise in
public investment as well as in private investment through government subsidies
caused GNP per working age to keep increasing in the rest of the decade, even
after TFP started decreasing.
3. The Brazilian Economy in the 1970s: A Miracle
In this section, we first give some evidence that the average growth rate of
the Brazilian economy changed between 1970 and 1980. This change justifies
studying the economy in two subperiods: the 1970s and the 1980s/1990s. Second,
we carefully study the Brazilian economy in the first subperiod: 1970-1979. During
this decade, Brazil’s economy, measured by per capita GNP, grew by an average
of 5.05% a year. This period is known as the Brazilian economic miracle.
First let us compare the country’s economy in the 1970s with the 1980s and
1990s to show that it abruptly changed in 1980 in terms of the growth rate. To do
that, we make use of a growth account (for further details, see Kehoe and Prescott
(2002)).
Suppose that the economy’s aggregate production function is given by
Yt = AtK
θ
tH
(1−θ)
t
where Kt is the aggregate capital stock, Ht is the total hours worked, θ is the
capital share and At is the TFP.
contribuic¸o˜es, or contributions. The revenues from the former go into the general fund and are
subject to constitutionally mandated revenue sharing with the states and municipalities, among
other obligations, while the latter are earmarked (often rather loosely) for specific programs and
kept by the federal government. Hence (and somewhat
counterintuitively), enacting contributions
gives the government more discretionary spending power.
Brazilian Review of Econometrics 30(1) May 2010 9
Mirta N. S. Bugarin, Roberto Ellery Jr., Victor Gomes and Arilton Teixeira
1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000
0
50
100
150
200
250
300
Investment
Years
19
70
 =
 1
00
Total Investment 
Private Investment
Model 
Figure 4
Private, Total and Model’s Aggregate Investment (1970=1)
Using the above equation, we can decompose the growth rate of output per
worker into three parts: one due to the growth of At, one due to the growth of Kt
and finally one due to the growth of Ht.
Dividing the last equation by N , the working age population, and taking the
log of the resulting expression, we get
[
log
(
Yt+s
Nt+s
)
− log
(
Yt
Nt
)]
/s =
1
1− θ
[logAt+s − logAt] /s+ (4)
θ
1− θ
[
log
(
Kt+s
Yt+s
)
− log
(
Kt
Yt
)]
/s+
[
log
(
Ht+s
Nt+s
)
− log
(
Ht
Nt
)]
/s.
Using a capital share of 0.4, the yearly growth figure of the Brazilian economy
in the two subperiods is (Y is the annual GNP, N is the working age population
and H is the total number of hours worked).
Table 1
Growth accounting of GNP per working age person (%)
Period change in Y/N due to TFP due to K/Y due to H/N
1971-1980 5.05 1.50 2.14 1.41
1981-1998 0.28 -0.62 1.09 -0.17
Using the results from the growth figures, we can see the sharp contrast between
10 Brazilian Review of Econometrics 30(1) May 2010
From a Miracle to a Disaster: The Brazilian Economy in the Past 3 Decades
Brazil’s economic performance in the two subperiods. First, the annual growth
rate of GNP per working age person drops from 5.05% in the 1970s to 0.28% in
the 1980s and 1990s. Second, TFP , which was growing by 1.5% in the 1970s,
decreased during the 1980s and 1990s to an annual rate of 0.62%. Finally, hours
worked also decreased in the 1980s and 1990s, in contrast to the 1970s.
Now that we have given evidence for the different performance between the
1970s on the one hand and the 1980s and 1990s on the other, we turn our attention
to the first subperiod. The economy grew throughout the 1970s, but the main
source of growth was quite different across the years (see Table 2).
Table 2
Growth accounting of GNP per working age in the 1970s (%)
Period change in Y/N due to TFP due to K/Y due to H/N
1971-1980 5.05 1.5 2.14 1.41
1971-1974 9.24 5.48 0.88 2.87
1975-1980 2.27 -1.15 2.97 0.44
First, as in Gomes et al. (2003), TFP was the main source of GNP growth per
working age person in the first half of the 1970s. In contrast, in the second half
of that decade, capital was the main source of growth. Second, while the yearly
growth rate of TFP was 5.48% in the first half of the 1970s, in the second half,
it was negative (-1.15%). Third, the growth rate of GNP per working age person,
though positive in the second half of the 1970s, was less than one-third the rate
in the first half of that decade.
If we followed the Cass-Koopmans model, we would see GNP per working
age person declining in the second half of the 1970s, since TFP was decreasing.
Instead, what we see is the engine of growth switching from TFP to capital. Cap-
ital stock kept growing even after TFP stopped increasing and started decreasing
sharply (see Figure 5).
To understand the behavior of capital stock, we need to examine aggregate
investment. Clearly, the Cass-Koopmans model seems incapable of accounting for
the behavior of either aggregate capital or aggregate investment in the second half
of the 1970s.
3.1 Aggregate investment
Capital stock in Brazil is not computed based on firms’ balance sheets. All
available capital stock series depend, to some degree, on the investment series, or
when it is officially available, on gross fixed capital formation. Hence, the path of
the latter is key in order to understand the behavior of the former.
The present section describes the behavior of the Brazilian investment series.
We focus on its source, private and public (government plus state-owned firms).
As we will see, this differentiation is important to understand the behavior of the
Brazilian economy.
Brazilian Review of Econometrics 30(1) May 2010 11
Mirta N. S. Bugarin, Roberto Ellery Jr., Victor Gomes and Arilton Teixeira
1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000
75
80
85
90
95
100
105
110
115
120
125
Years
19
70
 =
 1
00
Figure 5
Total Factor Productivity (Brazil 1970 – 1998)
1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000
0.14
0.16
0.18
0.2
0.22
0.24
0.26
0.28
0.3
0.32
0.34
year
re
a
l i
nv
es
tim
en
t r
at
e
Figure 6
Aggregate Investment as a Share of GNP (Brazil 1970 – 2000)
12 Brazilian Review of Econometrics 30(1) May 2010
From a Miracle to a Disaster: The Brazilian Economy in the Past 3 Decades
Figure 6 shows investment as a share of GNP for 1970-1998 (both in real
terms). Investment increased significantly in the 1970s. The average investment
share grew from 16.42% between 1947 and 1969 to 25.26% in the 1970s, declining
to 20.05% between 1980 and 2000.
Following the neoclassical model, we should expect investment to peak during
the 1970-1974 period, when the Brazilian economy (and technological progress in
general) was growing very fast, and not in the second half of the 1970s, when TFP
was already declining. But, in fact, the investment share peaked in the second half
of the 1970s when TFP was decreasing rapidly (see Figures 6 and 5).
When we separate public from private investment, we can see what happened.
Right after TFP began to decline, public investment increased markedly. In Fig-
ures 7 we can see a sharp increase in the share of public investment from both com-
ponents, government and state-owned firms. Figure 7-(b) shows that the share of
public investment in aggregate investment went from 32.3% between 1970 and1974
to 40% between 1975 and1979 (between 1975 and 1978 it reached 42.5%). Clearly,
public investment increased sharply in the 1970s, at least in part offsetting the
decline in TFP , causing per capita GNP to keep growing.
1970 1975 1980 1985 1990
0.05
0.1
0.15
0.2
0.25
0.3
year
in
v
e
s
tm
e
n
t 
o
f 
s
ta
te
 o
w
n
e
d
 f
ir
m
s/
in
ve
st
.
(a) Share of the State Owned Enterprisers in
the Aggregate Investment (Brazil 1970 – 1998)
1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995
0.2
0.25
0.3
0.35
0.4
0.45
0.5
year
p
u
b
lic
 i
n
v
e
s
tm
e
n
t 
+
 i
n
v
e
s
t.
 o
f 
p
u
b
lic
 o
w
n
e
d
 f
ir
m
s
(b) Share of Government Plus State Owned
Enterprizes in the Aggregate Investment
(Brazil 1970 – 1998)
Figure 7
Aggregate Investment: Government and State Owned Enterprises (1970-1998)
Brazilian Review of Econometrics 30(1) May 2010 13
Mirta N. S. Bugarin, Roberto Ellery Jr., Victor Gomes and Arilton Teixeira
Even though public investment could have disregarded the rate of return on
capital, private investment should not follow the same pattern. If TFP is going
down, then private investment should also decline, since the return on capital
decreases with TFP . But when we look at Figure 8 we see that in the 1970s not
only public but also private investment increased after TFP started decreasing.
1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000
0.02
0.04
0.06
0.08
0.1
0.12
0.14
0.16
0.18
0.2
0.22
Years
Sh
ar
e 
of
 G
NP
Private
Public 
Figure 8
Private and Public Investment as a Share of GNP (Brazil 1970 – 1998)
To understand the behavior of private investment we need to look at govern-
ment subsidies to the private sector. As we can see in Figure 9 in the second half of
the 1970s government subsidies to the private sector as a share of GNP increased
from less than 1% at the beginning of the decade to 4% in 1980. In Figure 10 we
plot both series of private investment and subsidies as a share of GNP. The effect
of the subsidies on private investment is clear. Even though TFP was declining in
the second half of the 1970s, government subsidies were enough to increase private
investment, maintaining the economic growth rate.
In summary, in the first half of the 1970s, when TFP was increasing, the share
of public and private investment in aggregate investment was constant. In the
second half of the 1970s, public and private investment increased. In this period,
the increment of public plus private investment was enough to offset the reduction
in TFP , maintaining the growth rate of per capita GNP.
The behavior of public investment and government subsidies to the private
sector can be understood by looking at the objectives pursued by the Brazilian
government’s Second National Development Plan. As a response to the first oil
shock in 1973, the Brazilian government created this plan to try to keep the same
14 Brazilian Review of Econometrics 30(1) May 2010
From a Miracle to a Disaster: The Brazilian Economy in the Past 3 Decades
1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000
0
0.005
0.01
0.015
0.02
0.025
0.03
0.035
0.04
Years
Sh
ar
e 
of
 G
NP
Figure 9
Government Subsidies to the Private Sector as a Share of GNP (Brazil 1970 – 1998)
1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000
0
0.005
0.01
0.015
0.02
0.025
0.03
0.035
0.04
Sh
ar
e 
of
 G
NP
1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000
0.08
0.1
0.12
0.14
0.16
0.18
0.2
0.22
0.24
Sh
ar
e 
of
 G
NP
Years
Subsidy 
Investment 
Figure 10
Subsidies and Private Investment as a Share of GNP (Brazil 1970 – 2000)
Brazilian Review of Econometrics 30(1) May 2010 15
Mirta N. S. Bugarin, Roberto Ellery Jr., Victor Gomes and Arilton Teixeira
average per capita GNP growth rate reached in the first half of the 1970s.6
If the government’s main objective is to maintain per capita GNP growth, but
there is no technological progress (in fact, TFP was decreasing), accumulation of
capital can achieve this continued growth. Clearly, this implies disregarding all
prices, and increasing the stock of capital is not efficient, but the economy can still
grow as long as new investment can be financed. This is what occurred in Brazil
after 1974, when the country was running huge current account deficits, financed
by international borrowing.7
4. The Brazilian Economy in the 1980s and 1990s: A Disaster
In this section, we analyze the Brazilian economy in the 1980s and 1990s. We
follow the same steps for the 1970s, as explained above.
Before proceeding, we should point out that it is important to control for
inflation at the sector level. Hence, we made some corrections in the investment
series to control for changes in the price of investment relative to consumption
goods. Without this adjustment, the model cannot account for the behavior of
investment and capital stock in the Brazilian economy after the second half of the
1980s.8
The growth figures for the Brazilian economy for the 1981-1998 period are
given below in Table 3 (Y is the annual GNP, N is the working age population,
K is the capital stock and H is the total number of hours worked).
6See Gaspari (2004, pp. 437–450).
7See Geisel (1975) and Gaspari (2004) and Malan and Bonelli (1977).
8We are following the procedure developed by Bugarin et al. (2007).
16 Brazilian Review of Econometrics 30(1) May 2010
From a Miracle to a Disaster: The Brazilian Economy in the Past 3 Decades
Table 3
Growth accounting of GNP per working age person (%)
Period change in Y/N due to TFP due to K/Y due to H/N
1981-1998 0.28 -0.62 1.09 -0.17
1981-1988 1.06 -1.63 1.22 1.47
1989-1992 -3.86 -5.41 3.08 -1.53
1993-1998 2.02 3.92 -0.41 -1.49
First, the GNP growth rate per working age person is quite low for the whole
period, but it varies a lot across the subperiods shown above. Second, except for
the last subperiod, capital accumulation played a major role in avoiding negative
GNP growth per working age person; TFP declined at an ever-faster rate from
1980 to 1992. TFP became the engine of growth only in the last subperiod, when
the rate of technological progress became comparable, again, with that observed
in the 1970s. Finally, the average number of hours worked had been declining
since 1989.
This last phenomenon is not straightforward, but we want to stress two possi-
bilities. The first one is the new Constitution of 1988, which reduced the workweek
from 48 to 44 hours. The second is tax on labor. From the beginning of the 1990s,
the Brazilian government has been steadily increasing the tax burden. These dis-
tortions further increased the taxation on labor inputs, as well as on labor income,
affecting agents’ optimal intertemporal decisions. These changes in the tax system
increased the tax burden as a proportion of GNP from 22.4% in 1988 to 31.7% in
1998.
In this subperiod, the model can account reasonably well for the behavior of
the Brazilian economy, except for hours worked. To show this point, we reproduce
Figures 3 just for the subperiod analyzed in this section, that is, 1980-1998. The
results are in Figures 11-12
Brazilian Review of Econometrics 30(1) May 2010 17
Mirta N. S. Bugarin, Roberto Ellery Jr., Victor Gomes and Arilton Teixeira
1980 1982 1984 1986 1988 1990 1992 1994 1996 1998
60
65
70
75
80
85
90
95
100
105
Years
19
80
 =
 1
00
Figure 11
Brazilian Detrended GNP Per Working Age: Data (..) and Model Economy (-) (Brazil
1980 – 1998)
18 Brazilian Review of Econometrics 30(1) May 2010
From a Miracle to a Disaster: The Brazilian Economy in the Past 3 Decades
1980 1982 1984 1986 1988 1990 1992 1994 1996 1998
60
65
70
75
80
85
90
95
100
Consumption
Years
1
9
8
0
 =
 1
0
0
(a) Consumption (Brazil 1980 – 1998)
1980 1982 1984 1986 1988 1990 1992 1994 1996 1998
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
100
Investment
Years
1
9
8
0
 =
 1
0
0
(b) Investment (Brazil 1980 – 1998)
1980 1982 1984 1986 1988 1990 1992 1994 1996 1998
50
60
70
80
90
100
110
Capital
Years
1
9
8
0
 =
 1
0
0
(c) Capital (Brazil 1980 – 1998)
1980 1982 1984 1986 1988 1990 1992 1994 1996 1998
90
95
100
105
110
115
Hours
Years
1
9
8
0
 =
 1
0
0
(d) Hours Worked (Brazil 1980 – 1998)
Figure 12
Data (..) and Model Economy(-)
Brazilian Review of Econometrics 30(1) May 2010 19
Mirta N. S. Bugarin, Roberto Ellery Jr., Victor Gomes and Arilton Teixeira
5. Conclusion
In this paper, we ask if the neoclassical model can account for the behavior of
the Brazilian economy from 1970 to 1998. As we have seen, with some adjustments,
this model can account reasonably well for the observed behavior.
For the 1970s, we have to separate public investment (government plus state-
owned companies) from the private one. While private investment can be explained
by the Cass-Koopmans model after we introduced subsidies, public investment has
to be understood as an attempt by the government to keep the economy growing
even after TFP started decreasing.
For the 1980s and 1990s, the model also performs well. In this subperiod, we
have to control for changes in relative prices. This adjustment is necessary because
the increase in the price of investment relative to consumption in the second half
of the 1980s overestimates investment, and consequently the capital stock. Once
we control for changes in the relative price, the neoclassical model can account
fairly well
for the behavior of the Brazilian economy.
A problem still left to be explained is why TFP declined so much and for
such a long time (almost 20 years, from 1974 to 1992). We raise some possibilities.
First, there is the huge amount of state-owned companies created during the 1970s.
As is well known, such firms generally have lower productivity than private ones
(see Schmitz, 2001, Megginson and Netter, 2001). Government companies’ low
productivity can also drive down private companies’ productivity (see Schmitz
and Teixeira, 2008). Second, in 1974, the Brazilian economy entered a period of
increasing barriers to foreign trade, created by the government, based on an import
substitution model (a prime example being the “Informatics Law,” which slapped
prohibitive import duties on computer equipment, aiming to foster the domestic
industry, but wound up instead holding back the entire economy and creating
a huge black market). These barriers lasted until the end of the 1980s, being
completely eliminated only with trade liberalization in the early 1990s. There is
an increasing amount of evidence that trade restrictions reduce productivity (see
Muendler, 2004, Herrendorf and Teixeira, 2005, Wacziarg and Welch, 2008).
Last but not least, there is a combination of two facts: government subsidies to
private companies and an outdated bankruptcy law. These two elements together,
in a closed economy, can keep inefficient companies in business, reducing aggregate
productivity and technological progress.
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