Brazil

This report introduces the reader to the findings of a large-scale research project and only highlights findings reported in greater depth in project papers. Looking... Show More + at a system of cities across the stages of economic growth leads to the conclusion that the potential size of a city at any one point in time is insensitive to most actions of local public officials. At the same time, economic development brings in its wake a transformation in the manmade resources available in secondary centers, as well as checks to further, accelerated growth in pre-eminent centers. For most secondary centers there is little opportunity to profit from a transfer of dynamism from the metropolis in the form of relocations and new metropolitan-based branches. The limited search for location alternatives is responsible for this. Secondary centers can, however, count on the expansion of stationary firms and on the generation of new independent units to help bring about growth. Local officials should concentrate on providing public services at the local level and on finding ways to increase the availability of leasable space for smaller businesses. At the national level the best spatial policy is a set of efficient sectoral policies. Show Less -

Integrated rural development projects have a number of functional components which are operationally unrelated. Agricultural production promoting activities such as... Show More + the extension of credit are combined with social components such as the provision of health services and with infrastructure building works such as rural electrification. Although the concept of a multipronged approach to rural development appears sound and attractive to many, its actual application has in many instances been disappointing. In particular, concrete achievements and hence measurable benefits often fall short of planning goals. It is argued in this study that the modesty in achievements experienced, so far, is due as much to the complexity of the problem, rural underdevelopment, as it is to the result of structure and inexperience of the mostly public sector institutions that are asked to implement the project designs. Concluding that the concept of integrated rural development merits further application, the study recommends pursuing an institutionalization of project development activities, (2) enlisting private sector land development companies as executing agencies; and (3) supporting financially and with technical assistance the many nongovernmental agencies that operate in rural development. Show Less -

Technology exports reflect important shifts in the global pattern of comparative advantage. They reflect increasing industrial maturity and technological experience... Show More + accumulated in industrialization. Except for construction and capital goods, the volume of technology exports is comparatively small, but it has reached appreciable levels in recent years. More significantly, all types of technology exports have been growing rapidly, which seems likely to continue, particularly once favorable international market conditions are restored. Technology exports can be accounted for in terms of the influences of resource endowment, government policy, and firm strategy. The combined impact of these influences can be expressed in the following terms: overall resource endowment, including human capital, determines potential comparative cost advantage; firm strategy and country policy affect the realization of potential advantages and the relative profitability of exercising them through different means; strategy and policy aspects influence changes in comparative advantage through their effects on human and institutional capital accumulation. While there are benefits to greater participation in trade, acquiring experience in newly established areas takes time and effort. Show Less -

Brazil's system of intergovernmental fiscal relations has, with some minor exceptions, remained unchanged for almost two decades. Economic, social and political conditions... Show More + in the country, however, have undergone profound transformations during the same period. This paper investigates whether the mechanisms, established during the 1960s, for financing state and local governments are still adequate in the environment of the 1980s. The main conclusion is that they are not, and that certain fiscal adjustments are called for in order to bring resource availability at the subnational level more into line with functional responsibilities. Given the extreme intra- and interregional economic disparities prevailing in Brazil, special attention is given to the fiscal problems of governments in poorer regions. The methodology used in this report focuses attention on the extent to which the intergovernmental fiscal system has achieved and maintained vertical balance, the balance between resource availability and functional responsibilities at each of the various levels of government, and horizontal balance, the balance between resources and responsibilities at given levels of government in different parts of the country. Show Less -

This paper utilizes data on the ratio of surviving children and other variables for a sub-sample of mothers aged 20-29 to analyze the impact of increased access to piped... Show More + water in urban households on trends and income class differentials in child mortality. Path analytic regression techniques are used to test a recursive model linking the supply and demand for piped water to selected household and community level variables, and to examine their joint effect on child mortality. The analysis shows that increased maternal education accounted for a larger share of the mortality decline between 1970 and 1976 than any other single factor. Increased access to piped water did contribute, and also helped reduce the mortality differential between lower and higher income and education classes. Obviously, piped water is a costly intervention; an analysis of the relative cost-effectiveness, e.g. piped water vs. female education, requires that their costs be estimated and matched to these estimates of relative effectiveness. Show Less -

Given pollution, congestion, and the condition of public health within the metropolitan Sao Paulo area, the issue of whether public policy should actively foster industrial... Show More + decentralization has become an important topic of political debate. This paper reports on the preliminary analysis of responses to questions asked in the survey about the motives for seeking a new site or building and the factors entering into the choice of a new site or building. Plants were divided into three movement categories: births, or new plants of new companies; branch plant moves; and transfer moves, involving closure of an existing unit and reopening at a new location. The analysis indicates that, from a wide range of possible factors, a relatively small number play the dominant role in both decisions; but considerable variation is found by location of the plant and by the characteristics of the company involved. Growth and expansion are the most significant locational push factors; strongest location pull factors include ease of road access, space for expansion, suitable plot, available power supply, and plentiful and appropriate labor supply. Show Less -

Regional disparities in living standards within Brazil have received increasing attention in recent years. This paper attempts to throw light on this issue by providing... Show More + a quantitative range for these differences. Drawing on the national consumption survey called ENDEF for 1974/75, estimates are set out for real income, nutritional levels and poverty for major regions, and urban and rural areas. The results of this study indicate that, although cost of living adjustments narrow spatial differences, large regional disparities remain, particularly upon comparing the Northeast and the Southeast. The use of cost of living indices reduces urban-rural variations more than in the case of regional differences, drastically narrowing the urban-rural gap in food consumption. Poverty is, nevertheless, much more concentrated in the rural areas than in urban areas, although regional differences in the incidence of poverty are more striking than the urban-rural divergencies. Show Less -

This paper asks whether growth has been widely shared and, in particular, whether it has raised the absolute incomes of the poorest groups in Brazil. The review of evidence... Show More + covers the period 1960-1976/77. New sources, in particular a national household budget survey (ENDEF) and the 1976 household employment survey, have made possible both a re-examination of previous sources and a clearer separation in the analysis of income trends before and during the fast growth period between 1968 and 1974. There is no set of comparable and accurate sources that provide a definite answer to questions regarding income trends since 1960. There is, however, a great deal of fragmentary and imperfect evidence which, when examined as a whole, suggests that: (i) the extent of income growth throughout the population, including many in the poorest groups, has been underestimated in previous studies; and (ii) the rate of poverty reduction was faster during the rapid growth years, 1968-1974. Show Less -

This paper attempts to elucidate the long-term impact of basic education on income inequality in Brazil. It does so, first, by examining how investment in basic education... Show More + affects incomes and, second, by assessing the extent to which government involvement in the financing of education services and the taxing of the returns to education investment contributes to the achievement of a more equitable distribution of income. On the basis of the empirical evidence available in Brazil, it is possible to suggest that (i) education per se cannot significantly reduce inequality, (ii) government policies in terms of education subsidies and taxes on lifetime earnings do not show a clear redistribution pattern, and (iii) there exist effective policy tools in the area of employment, education wastage, cost recovery practices which could help bridge the gap between rates of return to education and reduce income inequality. Show Less -

Two regional Brazilian transportation models are summarized. The basic objectives of the two studies are similar: transport project identification and preliminary evaluation... Show More + for an entire mode or sector through application of a formal network model. One study encompasses all modes while the other only covers highway transport. The overall conceptual framework common to the two studies involves five parts: 1) traffic generation by a region as a function of the spatial pattern of population and economic activity; 2) estimation of costs and performance measures for each link; 3) definition of the network and determination of the minimum path routing between every origin-destination pair; 4) distribution of traffic flow volumes by origin and destination; and 5) project selection under a capital constraint. Tabular data on Brazilian transport costs, different types of road surface by vehicle type, different rates of rise and fall by vehicle type, and values for curvature, bridges, and side friction by road surface and vehicle type are provided. Show Less -