Gastos governamentais e crescimento econômico no Brasil / Governmental expenditures and economic growth in Brazil

AUTOR(ES)
DATA DE PUBLICAÇÃO

2006

RESUMO

The second oil shock (1979) and the increase in international interests in the early 1980s initiated a long period of economic stagnation in Brazil, in which restrictive fiscal policies prevailed. The investigation of economic growthrelated questions may be based on neoclassic tradition models or on the socalled endogenous models. In the former case, it is assumed that the economy can be represented by a Cobb-Douglas type production function, with constant returns to scale for capital and labor, decreasing input marginal productivity, income convergence, and long-term growth exclusively determined by the technological progress rate. The endogenous growth models, on the other hand, allow the use of behavioral parameters to explain such growth. Externalities can make the production function present increasing returns to scale, permitting to measure the importance of other determinants of economic growth. In the Brazilian case, evolution and behavior of government expenditures in the 20th Century, especially after the 1950s, indicate that these can be considered a productive input capable of generating positive externalities to the national economic growth. Until the 1950s, the participation of the public sector in the economy could be considered to be modest, a fact reflected in the reduced number of productive units controlled by the Union or by the states. Between 1950 and 1980, investment in the public sector maintained a direct relation with the GDP (Gross Domestic Product), even with the ratio total expenditure (investment + consumption + subsidies + transferences/GDP being constant. After the 1980s crisis, the situation became inverted, with stagnated public investment and GDP with an increasing expenditure GDP ratio, despite the recurring stabilization policies based, on a great extent, on fiscal adjustment. The relations between public expenditure and economic growth in the country, the opportunity to disaggregate the State from its expenditures, combined with the growing need to free the Brazilian economy from this lasting economic stagnation period justify studies probing the role public expenditure plays in the Brazilian economic growth. This objective was pursued in this work via GDP and Total Factor Productivity (TFP) responses to public expenditures in Brazil, causality relations between these variables, and comparison of the trajectories simulated and observed in the period of time studied, i.e., from 1960 to 1998. The methodology applied time series econometrics and numerical methods to solve problems of optimal control. The results point the deficiencies of the neoclassic model in explaining the Brazilian economic growth in the late 20th Century, since 43.42% to 56.21% of the national economic growth in the period are due to everything that affects economic growth except capital and labor (TFP). The fact that the government constitutes a significant productive input to growth was verified based on the average expenditure contribution to national development, 57.89%. The elasticities calculated for the governmental expenditures indicate that these can positively influence economic development, provided priority is given to investments including those in infrastructure supplied by state companies (0.48), besides education expenditures (0.10), investment in detriment of consumption, subsidies and transferences. Regarding centralization, one must stimulate the increase of state attributions in detriment of the Union, with municipal expenses presenting the least impact in terms of economic growth. In explaining which expenditure can affect national economic growth in a more or less intense manner, State size and efficiency gain expression as a tool for development, not limited to promoting fiscal adjustments.

ASSUNTO(S)

política governamental brasil crescimento e desenvolvimento economico produto interno bruto despesa pública desenvolvimento econômico condições econômicas economic growth brazil governamental policy economic conditions governmental expenditures gross domestic product

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