O setor de serviços no crescimento econômico e o papel da política cambial: teoria e evidências

Abstract

The thesis is divided into four essays. The general objective is to investigate the role of modern services in the performance of economies and the importance of symbiosis with industry for economic growth, using the real exchange rate (RER) as an instrument of economic policy capable of stimulating sectorial dynamics. The first study rescues the theories of growth and proposes a research agenda that includes modern services as a central theme of study. The main argument is that the service sector positively affects industrial productivity and contributes to the growth of per capita income through the productivity interaction between industry and modern services. The second essay aims to update the central thesis of the Latin American structuralist approach. Through an analytical approach, it appears that the Latin American countries are not complex, they are not very productive and they also do not lead the technical progress in modern services. Central countries have competitive services, while peripheral countries occupy a restricted space in foreign trade. It is argued that one of the reasons that explain this dichotomy is the absence of the formation of an "endogenous nucleus of technological dynamism" during the industrialization phase of Latin American countries. The third essay tests the role of RER in the process of structural change, and in stimulating the generation of added value and employment in the modern services sector. To test this hypothesis, econometric models were estimated based on the Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) for a sample of 19 countries between 2000 and 2014. The results show that a favorable exchange rate policy contributes to the differential in sectoral performance between countries. The fourth essay investigates whether the devalued exchange rate has effects on the symbiosis between industry and modern services, and later, whether this integration between both sectors affects economic growth. Econometric models (GMM) are estimated for a sample of 41 countries between 2000 and 2014. The results show that the devalued RER encourages symbiosis between both sectors. It is understood that the fundamental mechanism that interconnects exchange rate policy, symbiosis and economic growth are the increasing returns of expanded dynamic scale arising from the sectoral integration between industry and services.