Trade Policies and Consequences (original) (raw)

Twenty-Five Years Of Import Substitution In Brazil 1948-1972

1975

In concluding her now classic analysis of the Brazilian import substitution model, the Brazilian economist Maria Concei. So Tavares pointed out four different strategic possibilities which in 1964 still represented realistic alternatives for the coming decade. The first possibility assumed the persistence of the external bottleneck and stability of sectoral and regional market structures. A second alternative assumed the persistence of the external bottleneck but envisioned changes in sectoral and regional market distribution which would reduce the already exaggerated duality of the system. The third alternative foresaw the possible expansion of traditional exports and an improvement in the external sector which would allow the internal structure to survive intact. A fourth possibility envisioned export diversification, especially of manufactured goods, and thus also the alleviation of the import constraint and the crisis it compelled..

The secular trend of Brazilian terms of trade revisited

The purpose of this paper is to revisit the commonly argued secular deteri oration of the Brazilian terms of trade using structural time series models. We argue that the ambiguity observed in previous studies about this topic is due to the lack of generality of the statistical specification. Specifi cally, the trend component used in those studies does not nest alternative specifications. Ad ditionally, these representations do not allow multiple breaks and/or outliers. Diagnostic tests and forecasts suggest the superiority of the random walk with drift representation, in the presence of multiple breaks. The results obtained indicate the existence of a negative deterministic slope between the period of 1850 and 2000.

Trade and Production, 1976-1999

2001

This paper is a companion to the database in the Trade and Production CD-ROM. The database contains trade, production and tariff data for 67 developing and developed countries at the industry level over the period 1976-1999. The sector disaggregation in the database follows the International Standard Industrial Classification (ISIC) and is provided at the 3 digit level (28 industries) for 67 countries and at the 4 digit le vel (81 industries) for 24 of these countries. The sources of the production data are the CD-ROM versions of UNIDO's Industrial Statistics Database at the 3 and 4 digit level of the ISIC classifications. It includes data on value added, total output, average wages, capital formation, number of employees, number of female employees, and number of firms. The source of the trade data is United Nations Statistics Department's Comtrade database (through World Bank's World Integrated Trade Solultion (WITS) software) and it includes imports, exports. Mirror exports (reported by other trading partners) were obtained using WITS. Trade data is aggregated by region and income levels according to World Bank's definitions. A separate dataset is provided as well that includes bilateral trade flows (by partner) at the industry level. The sources of MFN average tariffs are UNCTAD's Trains database and WTO's Trade Policy Reviews and Integrated Data Base (IDB). An input-output table using data from GTAP 4 is also provided for each country. The database is available on CD-ROM in a series of ASCII files and Microsoft Excel worksheets.

Manufacturing export expansion and industrialization in Brazil

Journal of Development Economics, 1980

Faced with a severe balance of payments problem and tlw: apparent end of the era of easy import substitution, Brazil in the mid 1960's made a significant policy shift toward export promotion and a mo're open economy. At first glance the new export policy appears to have been a resoundiug success. Exports have risen from around 1.6billionin1hemidsixtiestoover1.6 billion in 1 he mid sixties to over 1.6billionin1hemidsixtiestoover10 billion a decade later. Furthermore, Brazil's extreme dependence on coffee and the U.S. market have both been significantly reduced, and a substantial :rnde in manufactures has begun for the first time. Now, for the English speaking reader, Savasini and Tyler have written two very useful, complemen:ary analyses of Brazil's experience with exports. Savasini's book is a clearly written study of the Brazilian export promotion system erected after 1967. He describes that system in detail and then tries to answer the question of how efficient the system was in prodlrcing foreign exchange. My only complaint is the author's apparent unawareness of previous work in his field (including Tyler's). Tyler, as the title of his book suggests, seeks to place Brazil's recent export boom into the broader context of postwar industrialization. He seeks arswers to such q;.;estions as: how important exports were for the expansion of domestic production and employment (not very), what explains Brazil's declining export performance in the 1950's and its resurgence in the 1960's (changing competitiveness), how important were the subsidies in export expansion (q.tite), and did Brazil subsidize the right products? (probably not). Looking first at the nature of the subsidy system, as described by both authors, Brazil helps exporters in four ways: through tax exemptions, tax subsidie: , :-ubsidized credit and drawbacks, All products in Brazil are subject to a St, te Sales tax (the ICM). Industrial products are also subject to a Federal Sales tax (the IPI). Expnrts, and the intermediate goods that go into them, are exempted froLL., 5~ : !; of these taxes. Since the level of the IPI varies across pr Jducts according to whether th:y are perceived as luxuries or necessities, export tax exemptions also differ across products, being generally higher on machinery and consu.mer durables and low on focd. In addition to these tax exentptions, exporter; receive a refund for any tarir'fs paid on irnporrcd i:rp,i:s (drawback). The:{ ..rlso receive several important tax

Import Elasticities For Brazil, 1953-1970

1976

Quantitative models of Import demand have revolved around numerical estimates of demand elasticities for a number of theoretical and practical reasons. Especially in the Latin American context, much of stimulus and direction of postwar development is said to have its origin in the reaction to the trade constraint, and the style and speed of the industrialization in the reaction to the increasing pressure of import demand. A somewhat different model views development from the reverse angle and mechanically searches for evidence of the impediment that periodic trade imbalances supposedly place in 2 the path of growth. Disciplines Growth and Development | International Business | Statistical Methodology | Statistical Models This report is available at Iowa State University Digital Repository: http://lib.dr.iastate.edu/econ\_las\_staffpapers/153