Nova Economia

What motivates family members to share resources? Past research argues for, on the one hand, love and altruism, and on the other, the expectation of reciprocity. Drawing on this literature, this paper examines intergenerational transfers between small farmers and their non-coresident children in the rural area around the city of Altamira, Pará, Brazil. We apply GoM (Grade of Membership) models to create profiles of private transfers, using data collected in 2005 by a team from Indiana University. The results show three profiles: low intergenerational transfers, high levels of transfers of visits and help, and high levels of transfers of visits and money. There is no clear difference in profile by birth order, but we do find sex differences in profile. Men are more likely to send money while women provide time transfers (work and visits). Upward transfers are most common from children with high levels of education or living in urban areas, suggesting a repayment of prior investments made by parents. Thus, our empirical evidence supports theories arguing that transfers are motivated by intertemporal contracts between parents and children, and that altruistic theories of family transfers should be rethought among rural agricultural populations in contexts characterized by many environmental and institutional challenges.

Fiscal issues were central in the Portuguese enlightened reform at the end of the Eighteenth century, especially after revolutions in Western Europe and America that were triggered by tax conflicts. The writings of the Portuguese statesman D. Rodrigo de Souza Coutinho (1755-1812) show a great number of new ideas about taxation, which also helped to create new ways to le-gitimate the Crown’s fiscal extraction of the economic surplus from Portuguese and American vassals. The article defends the position that under the influence of new economic currents (Smith and the Physiocrats’ liberalism) and new absolutist government practices (the enlight-ened administration in Piedmont-Sardinia and Austrian Lombardy), these fiscal ideas were adapted and transformed, not just copied, to fit the Luso-Brazilian imperial framework.

The article analyses the evolution of Brazilian tariff policy between 1844 and 1889. At first a review of the various tariff schedules adopted during the period is made, with their main features highlighted. The next section seeks to assess the impact of tariff policy on the degree of protection afforded to the domestic sector. To that effect, three types of exercises are carried out: first, the "real cost of imports" and its determinants are calculated; we then calculate coefficients of partial correlation between the quantity of imports, GDP, price of imports, the rate of exchange and import tariffs; finally, we estimate econometrically import demand equations. The exercises reveal that during the II Reign tariffs were important in explaining variations in total imports, although this importance diminished after 1869.

Sixty years after the death of Johan Huizinga, the great Dutch historian, this article discusses the meaning of his work and comments on the misconceptions that marked the response to his books in the past century.

This article presents the intellectual trajectory of Roman Rosdolsky, highlighting his contributions to the interpretation of Marx's works and to the historical studies.

This article examines the evolution of sectoral employment in Brazil between 1949 and 2010, using structural decomposition analysis of the input-output model. The data base was selected from the decennial matrices for the 1959/2000 period and from figures referring to 1949 and 2010; these were obtained using the Delphi Method. Those sectors in which labour productivity rose simultaneously with employment increases were defined as virtuous sectors. The only sectors that fit this description for the entire period were the manufacturing of capital goods and services. Virtuosity was observed in a number of cases over the sub-periods, however, mainlly concentrated between 1949 and 1970. However, between 1970 and 1980, simultaneous growth in employment and in labour productivity was not observed in any sector.

This paper presents an estimate of fixed tangible wealth for the Brazilian economy in the period 1950-1998. Net capital stock and consumption of fixed capital are derived by the perpetual inventory method (PIM) employing a geometric depreciation function. Despite the criticism to the PIM methodology, it is used for all countries with capital stock estimates and recommended by UN (1993).

The issue of politically oriented regional development occupies an important place in the Economic History of Minas Gerais during the republican period. Since the start of the 20th century, and throughout the most important transformative stages of the Brazilian economic system, notably between the 1930s and 1960s, overcoming underdevelopment and the peripheral position of the state has been a priority for the elites of Minas. For a variety of reasons that we will attempt to demonstrate, we understand that it is essential to study the Diagnóstico da Economia Mineira, published in 1968, by the Banco de Desenvolvimento de Minas Gerais (BDMG), if the goal is to understand the vicissitudes of the state’s economic development, especially considering the aforementioned priority. This study emphasizes the meaning of this rich document, especially the long-lived institutional relationships and theoretical matrixes that lent it legitimacy and made it suited it to its time. The text is structured in three coplementary parts: i) description and analysis of the document; ii) brief background of developmentism in Minas Gerais during the republican period; iii) presentation of four case studies about the themes of the Diagnóstico: transportation, electric energy, sugar industry and steel making.

The issue of politically oriented regional development occupies an important place in the Economic History of Minas Gerais. Since the start of the 20th century, and throughout the most important transformative stages of the Brazilian economic system, overcoming underdevelopment and the peripheral position of the state has been a priority for the elites of Minas. We understand that it is essential to study the Diagnosis of the Economy of Minas, published in 1968, if the goal is to understand the vicissitudes of the state's economic development. This study emphasizes the meaning of this rich document, especially the long-lived institutional relationships and theoretical matrixes that lent it legitimacy and made it suited it to its time. The text is structured in three parts: i) description and analysis of the document; ii) brief background of developmentism in Minas; iii) presentation of four studies about the themes of the Diagnosis: transportation, electric energy, sugar industry and steel making.

The objective of this study was to obtain an estimate for residential electricity demand in Minas Gerais in the period from 1970 to 2002. Specifically, the goal was to estimate price and income elasticities. After determining that the series under study were non-stationary, we chose to use the Co-integration approach, estimating a Vector Error Correction Model (VEC Model). The results obtained show that the demand studied is more sensible to variations in the income than to the price of the electricity, although both elasticities are inferior to the unit. It was also concluded that price-elasticity is higher in Minas Gerais than it is for Brazil as a whole, suggesting differentiated usage of this energy among the different states in the Country.

This paper discusses how Prebisch and Fajnzylber, two authors representative of the thought of the Economic Commission for Latin America (ECLA), interpreted the industrialization crisis experienced by many Latin American countries beginning in the mid-seventies. The focus of the paper is on the effect of technology and income distribution on growth, two variables that played a significant role in shaping the crisis. The ideas of the two authors are compared, and ECLA´s criticism of import-substitution policies in the mid-seventies and in the eighties is reviewed. It is argued that although both authors belong to the same theoretical tradition, there is a key difference in how they perceive the viability of capitalism in developing countries.

This article focuses on the economic policies of the Emílio Garrastazu Medici administration. This period became known for the official description of the then ongoing economic boom, as if this boom were a real developmental stage that would lead to prolonged growth for decades, thus pulling the country out of its backwardness. In the first section, we will examine the creation of a national project by the military regime, leading to the "Brazil: a Great Power" project, which was based on growth in exports of agricultural products as its core development strategy. The second section presents a detailed summary of the conduct of economic policy - with emphasis given to aspects concerning the core strategy announced, to sustained growth and to stabilization policy. The analysis highlights some specific aspects of the 1972-1973 economic scenario, suggesting that this represents a different period (a second phase) in the conduct of economic policy during the Brazilian "miracle".

This article analyzes the convergence of the financial systems of 27 developed and underdeveloped countries, based on their performance during the periods from 1971 to 1990, and 1990 to 2000. The analysis was performed using Markov matrices, and was based on two variables related to the role of financial intermediaries in these systems: credit/GDP ratio and volume of deposits/GDP ratio. The results obtained, based on the data for these two periods, indicate that there will not be convergence of the financial systems of these countries into a single pattern over the long term. The pattern of convergence based on the 1990-2000 period differs from the pattern based on the first period. The second period was characterized by the intensification of financial globalization, which resulted in great changes in the financial markets of many countries. The results from this period suggest a tendency to converge towards two extremes with respect to the function of the banks in financial systems.

First, the paper analyses the performance of the trade and exchange rate policies in Brazilian economy since the 1980s, specifically in the post-Real Plan period. Second, it attempts to relate the different degrees of external vulnerability of the period with the behavior of economic growth rates in the Brazilian economy. Third, it proposes an economic agenda, based on counter-cyclical monetary and fiscal policies, a managed exchange rate, industrial policy and capital controls, to mitigate or eliminate Brazilian external vulnerability, which is so important to assure sustainable growth rate for Brazilian economy.

This study analyses the evolution of women's labor force participation, the contribution of women's earnings to household income, and the impact on the household income inequality per capita in Brazil for the period 1981-2002. The data are from the Brazilian National Household Survey (PNAD). The decomposition of the Gini index by income shares shows a decrease in the contribution of men's earnings, and an increase in the contribution of both women's earnings and pensions, in the inequality of per capita household income. The increase in the contribution of women's earnings to inequality is mostly due to significant increase in the share of these earnings the household income.

O artigo propõe um tratamento econométrico sobre indicadores de competitividade vinculados à eficiência empresarial, especialmente aqueles relacionados à competitividade potencial relativa. Esses índices são obtidos mediante a relação entre as séries de salário real e de produtividade do trabalho de Minas Gerais em comparação com o Brasil. Aplica-se esse teste aos dados da Pesquisa Industrial Mensal do Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística. As características econométricas das séries dos indicadores de competitividade são analisadas através dos testes de Dickey-Fuller Aumentado e de Perron. A data da quebra estrutural é endogenamente determinada. Os resultados diferem de acordo com o setor industrial considerado, com o momento em que ocorreu o ajuste estrutural no período 1985-2000 e com a existência ou não de uma trajetória crescente ou decrescente para a competitividade industrial.

The aim of this paper is to examine how the service sectors contribute to labor productivity in the economy as a whole, as well as each of the sectors in particular, using the notion of vertically integrated sector developed by Pasinetti (1973). The studies focused on structural changes and economic growth in Brazil between 1990 and 2003. The results show that service sectors have lower productivity than other sectors, but the difference diminishes when considering total productivity instead of direct productivity. The main reason is the effect induced by increased productivity of other sectors on service sectors.

The opening up of the Brazilian banking sector to foreign capital in the mid-nineties was justified as essential to promote competition as well as to induce Brazilian banks to increase credit supply and to reduce their costs - which did not happen, at least in that decade. Succinctly presented in the Exposition of Motives 311, such goals can be regarded as a diversionary maneuver or a concession to the contemporary liberal discourse. The main objective of the Government was actually to attract foreign capital in order to cope with banking sector problems caused by a sharp decline in inflation and the effects of the 1995 Mexican crisis. Foreign bankers, in turn, although promising changes and innovations, "quality and fair prices", have avoided any effective commitment to practices different from those commonly used in the Brazilian banking sector. The article analyzes public discourse of both actors and its contradictions with their actual objectives.