Austeridade fiscal e reformas estruturais: quais seriam os ganhos de produtividade do trabalho necessários para compensar os impactos regionais contracionistas da agenda de austeridade?

Abstract

This article aims to project the variation in labor productivity in response to fiscal consolidation in Brazil necessary to offset the contractionary impacts of this agenda, considering regional heterogeneities. For this, a dynamic interregional general equilibrium model is used for 27 Brazilian federative units, allowing a bottomup analysis. The main results show that the increase in labor productivity necessary to mitigate the contractionary effects of fiscal consolidation is around 20% in the accumulated until 2030 and varies considerably between the Federation Units (around 9% for the southern states, Southeast and Midwest, excluding the Federal District, and 30% for the North and Northeast states, on average). Macroeconomic results also follow the same heterogeneity. Despite the positive result of the trade balance, investment and employment fell 1.8 and 12%, respectively, compared to the baseline scenario. The increase in labor productivity in the states most affected by the contractionary impacts of austerity is hardly feasible due to the low prospect of household consumption, falling investment and high unemployment in a sectoral composition that has little benefit from the austerity and reforms agenda.