IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eme/jespps/v37y2010i4p356-376.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Brazil's long‐term growth performance: trying to explain the puzzle

Author

Listed:
  • Ricardo Adrogué
  • Martin Cerisola
  • Gaston Gelos

Abstract

Purpose - This paper seeks to assess Brazil's growth performance from a long‐term perspective. Brazil's growth performance over the past 25 years has been lackluster, and various hypotheses have been advanced to explain Brazil's disappointing growth record. Design/methodology/approach - In contrast with the existing literature, the paper uses cross‐country and panel estimation techniques to analyze Brazil's growth record, building on the vast empirical literature on growth and its long‐term determinants. It examines the extent to which fundamental factors found to be related to growth in the cross‐section help to explain Brazil's growth performance during 1960‐2000. It also explores the dynamics of growth across time by using panel data models to assess the role of various fundamentals that may have influenced Brazil's growth performance since 1960. Findings - The empirical evidence presented confirms that macroeconomic stability and several reforms have helped raise per capita growth in Brazil since the mid‐1990s. The results also show that some long‐standing structural weaknesses continue to weigh negatively on per capita growth. Practical implications - Reducing the high level of government consumption would help lower the overall consumption level in the economy and lower its intertemporal price – the real interest rate, thus helping to foster investment and growth. Originality/value - The paper provides useful information on Brazil's growth performance from a long‐term perspective.

Suggested Citation

  • Ricardo Adrogué & Martin Cerisola & Gaston Gelos, 2010. "Brazil's long‐term growth performance: trying to explain the puzzle," Journal of Economic Studies, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 37(4), pages 356-376, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:eme:jespps:v:37:y:2010:i:4:p:356-376
    DOI: 10.1108/01443581011073381
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/01443581011073381/full/html?utm_source=repec&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=repec
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers
    File URL: https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/01443581011073381/full/pdf?utm_source=repec&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=repec
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1108/01443581011073381?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Harold L. Cole & Lee E. Ohanian & Álvaro José Riascos & James A. Schmitz, 2006. "Latin America in the rearview mirror," Quarterly Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, vol. 30(Sep).
    2. Carmen M. Reinhart & Graciela L. Kaminsky, 1999. "The Twin Crises: The Causes of Banking and Balance-of-Payments Problems," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(3), pages 473-500, June.
    3. Antonio Fatás & Ilian Mihov, 2003. "The Case for Restricting Fiscal Policy Discretion," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 118(4), pages 1419-1447.
    4. repec:rus:hseeco:70719 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Norman Loayza & Pablo Fajnzylber & César Calderón, 2005. "Economic Growth in Latin America and the Caribbean : Stylized Facts, Explanations, and Forecasts," World Bank Publications - Books, The World Bank Group, number 7315.
    6. Nelson H. Barbosa Filho, 2001. "International Liquidity and Growth in Brazil," SCEPA working paper series. 2001-04, Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis (SCEPA), The New School.
    7. Florian Pelgrin & Sebastian Schich & Alain de Serres, 2002. "Increases in Business Investment Rates in OECD Countries in the 1990s: How Much Can be Explained by Fundamentals?," OECD Economics Department Working Papers 327, OECD Publishing.
    8. Caprio, Gerard Jr. & Klingebiel, Daniela, 1996. "Bank insolvencies : cross-country experience," Policy Research Working Paper Series 1620, The World Bank.
    9. Arellano, Manuel & Bover, Olympia, 1995. "Another look at the instrumental variable estimation of error-components models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 68(1), pages 29-51, July.
    10. Gerhard Glomm & Jürgen Jung & Changmin Lee & Chung Tran, 2005. "Public Pensions and Capital Accumulation: The Case of Brazil," CESifo Working Paper Series 1539, CESifo.
    11. David L. Lindauer & Lant Pritchett, 2002. "What’s the Big Idea? The Third Generation of Policies for Economic Growth," Economía Journal, The Latin American and Caribbean Economic Association - LACEA, vol. 0(Fall 2002), pages 1-40, August.
    12. Dani Rodrik & Andres Velasco, 1999. "Short-Term Capital Flows," NBER Working Papers 7364, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Caballero, Ricardo J, 1994. "Small Sample Bias and Adjustment Costs," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 76(1), pages 52-58, February.
    14. Xavier Sala-I-Martin & Gernot Doppelhofer & Ronald I. Miller, 2004. "Determinants of Long-Term Growth: A Bayesian Averaging of Classical Estimates (BACE) Approach," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(4), pages 813-835, September.
    15. Manuel Arellano & Stephen Bond, 1991. "Some Tests of Specification for Panel Data: Monte Carlo Evidence and an Application to Employment Equations," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 58(2), pages 277-297.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Laura Policardo & Lionello F. Punzo & Edgar J. Sánchez Carrera, 2016. "Brazil and China: Two Routes of Economic Development?," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 20(3), pages 651-669, August.
    2. Altug, Sumru & Filiztekin, Alpay & Pamuk, Şevket, 2008. "Sources of long-term economic growth for Turkey, 1880–2005," European Review of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 12(3), pages 393-430, December.
    3. Manoel Bittencourt, 2011. "Is Copacabana Still the ‘Little Princess of the Sea’?," CESifo Forum, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, vol. 12(01), pages 11-16, March.
    4. Mr. Jeromin Zettelmeyer, 2006. "Growth and Reforms in Latin America: A Survey of Facts and Arguments," IMF Working Papers 2006/210, International Monetary Fund.
    5. Ricardo Hausmann, 2008. "In Search of the Chains that Hold Brazil Back," Growth Lab Working Papers 20, Harvard's Growth Lab.
    6. Alston, Lee J. & Mueller, Bernardo & Melo, Marcus André & Pereira, Carlos, 2010. "The Political Economy of Productivity in Brazil," IDB Publications (Working Papers) 1123, Inter-American Development Bank.
    7. Mr. Bennett W Sutton & Mrs. Genevieve M Lindow & Maria Isabel Serra & Mr. Gustavo Ramirez & Maria Fernanda Pazmino, 2006. "Regional Convergence in Latin America," IMF Working Papers 2006/125, International Monetary Fund.
    8. Nader Nazmi & Julio Revilla, 2011. "Brazil’s growth performance: a comparative perspective to the Asian giants," Economic Change and Restructuring, Springer, vol. 44(1), pages 7-24, April.
    9. Manoel Bittencourt, 2011. "Is Copacabana Still the ‘Little Princess of the Sea’?," CESifo Forum, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, vol. 12(1), pages 11-16, March.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Brahim Gaies & Stéphane Goutte & Khaled Guesmi, 2019. "Does Financial Globalization Still Spur Growth In Emerging And Developing Countries? Considering Exchange Rate Volatility'S Effects," Working Papers hal-01968082, HAL.
    2. Gaies, Brahim & Goutte, Stéphane & Guesmi, Khaled, 2020. "Does financial globalization still spur growth in emerging and developing countries? Considering exchange rates," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 52(C).
    3. Brahim Gaies & Stéphane Goutte & Khaled Guesmi, 2019. "Does Financial Globalization Still Spur Growth In Developing Countries? Considering Exchange Rate Volatility," Working Papers halshs-02175361, HAL.
    4. Luca Agnello & Ricardo M. Sousa, 2014. "The Determinants of the Volatility of Fiscal Policy Discretion," Fiscal Studies, Institute for Fiscal Studies, vol. 35, pages 91-115, March.
    5. Qian, Xingwang & Steiner, Andreas, 2017. "International reserves and the maturity of external debt," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 73(PB), pages 399-418.
    6. Loayza, Norman V. & Ranciere, Romain, 2006. "Financial Development, Financial Fragility, and Growth," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 38(4), pages 1051-1076, June.
    7. Ms. Sweta Chaman Saxena & Meenakshi Rishi & Ms. Valerie Cerra, 2005. "Robbing the Riches: Capital Flight, Institutions, and Instability," IMF Working Papers 2005/199, International Monetary Fund.
    8. Jan Babecky & Tomas Havranek & Jakub Mateju & Marek Rusnak & Katerina Smidkova & Borek Vasicek, 2011. "Early Warning Indicators of Economic Crises: Evidence from a Panel of 40 Developed Countries," Working Papers 2011/08, Czech National Bank.
    9. Valerie Cerra & Meenakshi Rishi & Sweta Saxena, 2008. "Robbing the Riches: Capital Flight, Institutions and Debt," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 44(8), pages 1190-1213.
    10. Fajeau, Maxime, 2021. "Too much finance or too many weak instruments?," International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 165(C), pages 14-36.
    11. Chen, Sheng-Syan & Chen, Hsien-Yi & Chang, Chong-Chuo & Yang, Shu-Ling, 2013. "How do sovereign credit rating changes affect private investment?," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(12), pages 4820-4833.
    12. Daren Conrad & Jaymieon Jagessar, 2018. "Real Exchange Rate Misalignment and Economic Growth: The Case of Trinidad and Tobago," Economies, MDPI, vol. 6(4), pages 1-23, September.
    13. Ho Thuy Ai & Ping, Lin, 2018. "Impacts of fiscal policy on economic growth: Another look from institutional perspective," Economics Discussion Papers 2018-45, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    14. Babecký, Jan & Havránek, Tomáš & Matějů, Jakub & Rusnák, Marek & Šmídková, Kateřina & Vašíček, Bořek, 2013. "Leading indicators of crisis incidence: Evidence from developed countries," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 35(C), pages 1-19.
    15. Klomp, Jeroen & de Haan, Jakob, 2009. "Central bank independence and financial instability," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 5(4), pages 321-338, December.
    16. Mr. Anoop Singh & Mr. Martin D. Cerisola, 2006. "Sustaining Latin America's Resurgence: Some Historical Perspectives," IMF Working Papers 2006/252, International Monetary Fund.
    17. Calderón, César & Kubota, Megumi, 2018. "Does higher openness cause more real exchange rate volatility?," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 110(C), pages 176-204.
    18. Alessandra Canepa & Fawaz Khaled, 2018. "Housing, Housing Finance and Credit Risk," IJFS, MDPI, vol. 6(2), pages 1-23, May.
    19. Sai Ding & John Knight, 2011. "Why has China Grown So Fast? The Role of Physical and Human Capital Formation," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 73(2), pages 141-174, April.
    20. Naima Chrid & Sami Saafi & Mohamed Chakroun, 2021. "Export Upgrading and Economic Growth: a Panel Cointegration and Causality Analysis," Journal of the Knowledge Economy, Springer;Portland International Center for Management of Engineering and Technology (PICMET), vol. 12(2), pages 811-841, June.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eme:jespps:v:37:y:2010:i:4:p:356-376. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Emerald Support (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.