Desenvolvimento econômico e mudança estrutural: teoria e evidência a partir de um enfoque multi-setorial

Abstract

The objective of this dissertation is to analyze the relationship between the development of a National Innovation System (NIS) and the acceleration of the structural change and technological learning, which are the motors of economic development with balance of payment equilibrium. Along the dissertation we seek to trace a broad representation of the working dynamics of a peripheral economy. Thus, in chapter 2 we present and discuss the several models and theories related to the underdevelopment condition and its main constraints. The diagnosis extracted from that debate was the verification of four main constraints that hold back the development of the periphery. We argue that only by addressing the four problems simultaneously it is possible to keep the growth process that is the basis for the broader process of economic development. Hence, adopting an institutionalist and neo-schumpeterian perspective, in chapter 3 we focus the contribution of institutional arrangements that provide an impulse on investment and innovation, which are called National Innovation Systems (NISs). After discussing the concept of institutions and its constitutive role, we stress that the crucial institutions that form the NIS are: (i) industrial policy; (ii) credit policies; (iii) educational policy; (iv) and income inequality reducing policies. In the fourth chapter we then build a model that aims at formalizing the development dynamics of peripheral economies. The model demonstrates the importance of bringing together investment, productivity growth and income inequality reduction, i.e., the importance of the development of an efficient NIS in order to overcome the four constraints on development. To test the most important relations that stream from this model, at the end of chapter 4 we describe the results of panel data tests that cover a database of 70 countries. Tests confirm the relations described by the model and the theoretical framework that lies under it.