A RESTRIÇÃO EXTERNA COMO FATOR LIMITANTE DO CRESCIMENTO ECONÔMICO BRASILEIRO: UM TESTE EMPÍRICO

Abstract

This paper draws upon original works by A. Thirlwall and some recent developments of them, particularly those made by J. C. Moreno-Brid, on the balance-of- payments constraints to growth in several countries. It is intended, by means of new empirical tests, to evaluate the specification of such a constraint that better suit to the brazilian case and to test whether it has been really binding. New robust evidence is found that economic growth in Brazil was actually balance-of payments-constrained in the 1948- 2004 period. However, unlike what intuition could lead one to expect a priori, the model specification that incorporates capital flows and external debt dynamics does not differ much from the original specification of Thirlwall´s Law regarding a softening of the external constraint.