Trade Shocks in Brazil: An Investigation of Effects on Regional Manufacturing Wages

Brazil has experienced two trade shocks in the 90’s: unilateral liberalization, which weighted average nominal tariff reduced from 37.7% in 1988 to 10.2% in 1994; drastically real devaluation of 47% in the exchange rate in 1999. These two effects has influenced the location of industry in Brazil, since the industry center of Brazil, Sao Paulo State, reduced its participation in the industry sector from 52% in 1985 to 43% in 2002. This occurs when the dispersion forces overcome the agglomeration ones. The main dispersion force evidenced by the literature is the increase of competition, not only in the goods market (a new product), but also in the factor market (demand of labor, which increases wages). In a trade agreement, the most common trade shock, these two forces occurred simultaneously. At this case, it is possible to distinguish between two dispersion forces: competition of the imported goods (first shock); competition in the labor market (second shock). One way to evaluate these effects can be by investigating the effectiveness of transport cost to understand the regional differences in wages and if it has reduced (or increased) its explanation power after the trade shock. In order to do that, the methodology of Hanson 1997 will be used as a basic framework. It is possible to analyze the effects of these trade shocks in the disparities of regional wages in Brazil with his methodology. However, there will be some differences to his framework. First, Hanson uses state level data and this paper has a more disaggregated regional data (microregion, which divides Brazil into more than 500 parts). Second, Hanson doesn’t take into account any change in educational level, infrastructure improvement or government intervention, which are considered in this investigation. The first results show that transport cost is important to understand differences in wages between Brazilian microregions and trade shocks have influenced in some sense these disparities, but not so consistently as transport costs. Moreover, it seems that dispersion force of the second shock was greater than the first one, therefore, competition to hire new employees expel more plants to lower wages regions than comptetion with new products.

A LOCALIZAÇÃO DA INDÚSTRIA DE TRANSFORMAÇÃO BRASILEIRA NAS ÚLTIMAS TRÊS DÉCADAS

The purpose of this article is to investigate the geographic distribution of the Brazilian industrial sectors over the last three decades. The Gini and Venables Indices are used to measure the concentration. In the latter, the distance between the states is taken into account in measuring this concentration. The industrial sectors are separated into three groups using the K-means method of clustering in which the variables used are the principal components of the characteristics of the industries. By using an internal product, the State Characteristic Bias (SCB), the type of states in which the industrial sectors are being concentrated or not can be observed. In order to visualize which characteristics of the states and of the industries-and their respective interactions-influence the location of the industrial sectors within Brazil, an econometric cross-section model proposed by Midelfart-Knarvik, et al. (2000) is established for the Brazilian case. The main results show that heavy investment in infrastructure in the 1970s and the opening of trade in the 1990s played an important role in the location of Brazilian industry.

Flooding of Chinese goods and their impacts on exports of other countries: a firm-level investigation

Bibliografia: p. 28-30. Inclui apêndice, p. 31.1. Introduction -- 2. Economic background -- 3. Methodology -- 4. Data -- 5. Results -- 6. Further results -- 7. Conclusion -- References -- AppendixChina’s accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO) has shifted international trade and the literature on its impact on other countries’ exports is still scant. This paper aims to contribute to this literature by investigating the impact of Chinese expansion in the international trade on the exports of three Latin-American (LA) countries: Brazil, Mexico and Peru. Considering developed and developing countries as destinations from these LA countries, results suggest that these three countries were affected by the insertion of China into the international trade. Overall, firms of these three countries lost 5.7% of their exports to the United States of America (USA) and 7.2% to the European Union due to Chinese expansion. In terms of volume, these three countries lost USD 9 billion of exports just in the US market. Comparing the outcomes between countries, Brazil seems to be the most affected compared to Mexico and Peru in relative terms. Looking at the margins and types of goods, final goods suffered more from the Chinese competition compared to intermediaries, yet it is not feasible to distinguish which margin, intensive or extensive, was mostly affected

Location of economic agents in Brazil: an empirical investigation

This study focuses on regional aspects of the Brazilian economy. Three avenues are explored: two related to individuals’ and firms’ location decision and the last regarding public policy. In general, firms and individuals seem to be moving away from the main economic centre in Brazil, Sao Paulo. It seems nevertheless that public policy is not very related to these movements. In other words, government interventions to accelerate growth in less developed regions have not achieved their goal. Chapter 2 addresses the issue of internal migration in Brazil. This chapter investigates the influence of amenities and/or disamenities on migration flows, which is an issue not yet fully covered by the literature. It investigates whether changing dwellings across cities is associated specifically with violence using urban-urban migration data at municipality level. Results show that migration is affected by violence not only locally, but also when neighbouring effects are taken into account. These findings back up previous research which evidenced an inverse relationship between city size and violence. Turning to firms, Chapter 3 explores the role of geography in the location of manufacturing and of regional disparities in wages. According to theoretical models, employment concentrates closer to the market when increasing returns to scale are taken into account. As a consequence, regional wages are a decreasing function of transport costs to markets, since firms tend to compensate for these costs by paying less to their employees. Trade shocks may impact these regional wage disparities by making foreign markets relatively more attractive for firms than internal markets, or vice-versa. This chapter tested these hypotheses using Brazilian regional data. Having two isolated trade shocks, Brazil provides an excellent case for testing which shock was more effective in reducing regional disparities. Results show that regions with higher transport costs tend to have lower wages and a reduction in this cost through trade shocks has affected these regional disparities. However, it is not possible to distinguish which trade shock was more efficient to impact these regional unbalances. Chapter 4 evaluates the effects of the Brazilian Development Bank (BNDES) loans on firms’ productivity. The importance of BNDES in the Brazilian economy is quite sizeable, reaching over 10% of aggregate investment. Using micro level data, it was possible to investigate the impact on productivity, but also distinguish its effects between large and small projects as well as between rich and poor regions, since regional development is one of its statutory goals. Results suggest BNDES loans have no effect on firms’ productivity, even though some association was found without controlling for all firms’ characteristics. Overall, some lessons may be learned after this work. Not only are economic reasons key determinants for individuals’ and firms’ location decision as shown in Chapters 2 and 3 but also some other factors seem to be important as well. Social amenities, locally and in surrounding areas, are highly correlated to individuals’ migration decisions in the Brazilian case, especially violence. For firms, economic reasons prevail since trade shocks appear to change regions’ attractiveness between internal and external market. Last, but not least, government intervention does not seem to be associated to firms’ productivity after BNDES loans

PAC:MAN: sistema de gestão do risco de acidentes de poluição em zonas costeiras

Tese de mestrado em Engenharia Informática, apresentada à Universidade de Lisboa, através da Faculdade de Ciências, 2012O efeito da poluição por derrames acidentais nos ecossistemas costeiros motivou a procura e o desenvolvimento de abordagens para planeamento e resposta atempados à emergência com o intuito de proteger os recursos aquáticos. Os sistemas de monitorização da poluição e de modelação existentes são utilizados de forma independente durante acidentes deste âmbito sem a eficácia pretendida. A prevenção do risco de derrame é, habitualmente, feita via planos de contingência com base em estudos simplistas não refletindo o dinamismo da informação nem permitindo o alerta atempado dos gestores costeiros devido ao uso de tecnologia desatualizada. Os sistemas de gestão de risco, testados com sucesso em desastres ambientais e humanitários, demonstram ser soluções promissoras. A sua adequação permite criar sistemas de gestão de risco mais específicos, como riscos de poluição e gestão da resposta à emergência em zonas costeiras. Esta inovação permite conjugar a modelação costeira de vanguarda para análise de risco, a riqueza de informação ambiental existente para a definição de indicadores de condições propícias à ocorrência de derrames e as tecnologias de comunicação. Obtém-se como resultado um conjunto de meios de alerta precoce e resposta mais eficiente e benéfica do ponto de vista da segurança das populações, da capacidade de atuação dos gestores costeiros e da manutenção dos recursos naturais costeiros. A adaptação dos módulos do sistema de gestão de risco de acidentes por rotura de barragens SAGE-B permitiu conceber um novo sistema de gestão de risco de poluição em zonas costeiras que incluiu um sistema de alerta precoce resultante da aplicação dos modelos, um sistema de aviso associado e uma base de dados com os recursos em risco e os meios de resposta à emergência para a análise da vulnerabilidade na Ria de Aveiro, obtendo-se uma nova metodologia genérica de planeamento e resposta para riscos de poluição costeira.The effect of pollution by accidental spills on coastal ecosystems motivated the search and the development of solutions to emergency planning and timely response in order to protect aquatic resources. Nowadays, current pollution monitoring systems and modeling systems are used independently for events of this scope without the desired effectiveness. The risk prevention of oil spill is usually done through contingency plans based on simplistic studies, which do not account for the information dynamics or allow an early warning of coastal managers due to the use of outdated technology. Risk management systems, successfully tested on environmental and humanitarian disasters, prove to be promising solutions. Their adequation allows the creation of more specific risk management systems like pollution risks and management of emergency response in coastal areas. This innovation allows combining the cutting-edge coastal modeling for risk analysis, the richness of existent environmental information to define indicators of conditions prone to the occurrence of oil spills and communication technologies. This results in a set of tools for a more efficient early-warning and response which is also beneficial from the standpoint of security of the populations, from the ability to act from stakeholders and from the maintenance of coastal natural resources. The adaptation of the modules of the dam break accidents risk management system SAGE-B incorporates in a new pollution risk management system for coastal areas, including the early-warning system resulting from the application of the models, the associated alert system and a database of resources at risk and means of emergency response for the analysis of vulnerability in the Aveiro lagoon, proposing a new general methodology for planning and response to risks of coastal pollution

O comércio entre os BRICS e suas oportunidades de crescimento

Os fascículos, ao fim de cada ano, são reunidos em uma única publicação, intitulada "Visão do Desenvolvimento

Relaxing credit constraints in emerging economies: the impact of public loans on the productivity of Brazilian manufacturers

In emerging economies credit constraints are often perceived as one of the most important market frictions hampering firm productivity growth in manufacturing. Huge amount of public money is devoted to the removal of such constraints but its effectiveness is still subject to an intense policy debate. This paper contributes to this debate by analyzing the effects of the Brazilian Development Bank (BNDES) loans. Exploiting the unique features of a dataset on BNDES loans to Brazilian manufactures, it finds that credit constraints facing Brazilian manufacturing firms are real, in particular for firms that apply to BNDES repeatedly, and BNDES support has allowed granted firms to match the performance of similar unconstrained firms but not to outperform them

Desafios do apoio público à inovação no Brasil

Os fascículos, ao fim de cada ano, são reunidos em uma única publicação, intitulada "Visão do Desenvolvimento

A list of land plants of Parque Nacional do Caparaó, Brazil, highlights the presence of sampling gaps within this protected area

Brazilian protected areas are essential for plant conservation in the Atlantic Forest domain, one of the 36 global biodiversity hotspots. A major challenge for improving conservation actions is to know the plant richness, protected by these areas. Online databases offer an accessible way to build plant species lists and to provide relevant information about biodiversity. A list of land plants of “Parque Nacional do Caparaó” (PNC) was previously built using online databases and published on the website "Catálogo de Plantas das Unidades de Conservação do Brasil." Here, we provide and discuss additional information about plant species richness, endemism and conservation in the PNC that could not be included in the List. We documented 1,791 species of land plants as occurring in PNC, of which 63 are cited as threatened (CR, EN or VU) by the Brazilian National Red List, seven as data deficient (DD) and five as priorities for conservation. Fifity-one species were possible new ocurrences for ES and MG states

Regional manufacturing wages: dancing to the tune of trade shocks

Firms generally choose to locate their production where profits are maximized. As costs affect profits, trade-offs between two marginal costs – employees’ wages and transport costs – may be important for decisions regarding location. Wages tend to be greater in industrial centres and decrease as transport costs increase. Trade shocks might impact regional wage disparities by making foreign markets, for example, relatively more attractive for firms than domestic markets. This paper tests these two hypotheses by using regional Brazilian data. Results corroborate that regions with higher transport costs present lower wages, and that trade shocks affect these regional wage disparities