Cristina Terra

Trade Liberalization and the Evolution of Skill Earnings Differentials in Brazil

Skilled labor earnings differentials decreased during the trade liberalization implemented in Brazil from 1988 to 1995. This paper investigates the role of trade liberalization in explaining these relative earnings movements. We perform several independent empirical exercises that check the traditional trade transmission mechanism, using disaggregated data on tariffs, prices, earnings, employment and skill intensity. We find that: i) employment shifted from skilled to unskilled intensive sectors, and each sector increased its relative share of skilled labor; ii) relative prices fell in skill intensive sectors; iii) tariff changes across sectors were not related to skill intensities, but the pass-through from tariffs to prices was larger in skill intensive sectors; iv) the decline in skilled earnings differentials mandated by the price variation predicted by trade was even larger than the observed one. The results are compatible with trade liberalization accounting for the observed relative earnings changes in Brazil. They also highlight the importance of considering the effects of differentiated pass-through from tariffs to prices.

The Political Economy of Exchange Rate Policy in Brazil: 1964-1997

This paper analyzes political economy determinants of exchange rate policy in Brazil over the past thirty years. Two complementary methodologies are used. The first consists of investigating the exchange rate policy historical context over this period. Thus, part of the paper is dedicated to an historical account of the political economy of the exchange rate policy in Brazil from 1964 to 1997. The driving force affecting exchange rate policy was the tradeoff between the positive effect of a depreciated exchange rate on the balance of payments and its negative effect on inflation. The exchange rate policy resulting from this tradeoff depended on the political environment. An analytical framework is sketched to interpret the real exchange rate policy history, and then it is extended to encompass short-run election cycles. The second methodology is statistical. A Markov Switching Model is used to characterize statistically the exchange rate regimes, defined as valued or devalued real exchange rates, and the influence of political economy variables on regime changes. The results support the interpretation pursued in the analytical part. We found statistical evidence that the probability of an appreciated exchange rate is higher under democracy than under dictatorship. Furthermore, according to our statistical results there is also an election cycle: the probability of having an appreciated exchange rate is higher in the months preceding elections while the probability of having a depreciated exchange rate is higher in the months succeeding elections.

ELECTORAL CYCLES THROUGH LOBBYING

In this paper, we build a framework where the interplay between the lobby power of special interest groups and the voting power of the majority of the population leads to political business cycles. We apply our setup to explain electoral cycles in government expenditure composition, aggregate expenditures, and real exchange rates.

The political economy of exchange rate policy in Brazil: an empirical assessment

This paper investigates whether political economy factors contribute to explain the exchange rate policy in Brazil from 1964 to 1997. An analytical framework presents the tradeoff between the positive effect of a depreciated exchange rate on the balance of payments and its negative effect on inflation as driving force affecting exchange rate policy. The exchange rate policy resulting from this tradeoff depends on the political environment. We test our hypotheses by modeling the exchange rate disequilibrium level as a Markov switching model with time varying transition probabilities, and the influence of political economy variables on the transition probabilities is tested. The results support partially the predictions of our analytical framework. According to our statistical results there is an election cycle: the probability of having an overvalued exchange rate is higher in the months preceding elections, while the probability of having an undervalued exchange rate is higher in the months succeeding elections.

Sources of Comparative Advantages in Brazil

Based on the Heckscher-Ohlin-Vanek model, the authors investigate relative factor abundance in Brazil, as revealed by its international trade. They study two different time periods: one characterized by high trade barriers (1980–85) and the trade liberalization period (1990–95). Two alternative methodologies are used: the estimation of factor intensity regressions on net exports and the direct computation of factor content in net exports. In the factor intensity regression, the authors incorporate technological changes that might have occurred over time, and these turn out to be significant. Both methods yield the same results: the Brazilian international trade reveals relative abundance in capital, land, and unskilled labor, and scarcity in skilled labor, with qualitatively equivalent results for the two time periods studied.

A note Purchasing Power Parity and The Choice of Price Index

Looking closely at the PPP argument, it states that the currencies purchasing power should not change when comparing the same basket goods across countries, and these goods should all be tradable. Hence, if PPP is valid at all, it should be captured by the relative price indices that best fits these two features. We ran a horse race among six different price indices available from the IMF database to see which one would yield higher PPP evidence, and, therefore, better fit the two features. We used RER proxies measured as the ratio of export unit values, wholesale prices, value added deflators, unit labor costs, normalized unit labor costs and consumer prices, for a sample of 16 industrial countries, with quarterly data from 1975 to 2002. PPP was tested using both the ADF and the DF-GLS unit root test of the RER series. The RER measured as WPI ratios was the one for which PPP evidence was found for the larger number of countries: six out of sixteen when we use DF-GLS test with demeaned series. The worst measure of all was the RER based on the ratio of foreign CPIs and domestic WPI. No evidence of PPP at all was found for this measure.

French Colonial Trade Patterns and European Settlements

We construct a new database relying on various primary historical sources containing information on the value of French sectoral trade between 1880 and 1913 in order to assess the contemporaneous effects of colonial European settlements on French trade patterns. Our empirical results show that French colonies with more European settlements traded more with France. The impact is stronger with respect to the imports of raw materials and exports of manufactured goods from France to their colonies, suggesting that those territories were a source of resources for France and a market for its products. European settlements in colonies other than the French ones did not impact the trade of those colonies with France. We also explore to what extent the impact of European settlements on trade was exerted through the channel of the institutions brought by the settlers. Separating the part of European settlements associated with institutions, we find that the settlements associated with stronger institutions in French colonies had a positive impact on trade with those colonies. No significant impact was found for non-French colonies.

Brazil: Self-Inflicted Pain

The Brazilian economy grew 7.5% in 2010, when Mr. Lula finished his second mandate as president with a popularity rate of 85%. Six years later, his successor, Ms. Rousseff, is suspended from the presidency under an impeachment trial, while the economy endures a recession of 3.8% of the GDP for the second consecutive year. In this article I argue that the current economic crisis is the result of ill-advised economic policies. Ms. Rousseff’s government altered each one of the tripod of policies implemented by Mr. Cardoso in the 1990s, which had been successful in maintaining macroeconomic stability (namely, the inflation targeting regime, the floating exchange rate and the fiscal austerity). Also, Ms. Rousseff’s government greatly expanded the improperly designed industrial policies that were reintroduced in Brazil during the second mandate of Mr. Lula, which created distortions in the economy and a large fiscal burden for the government. The acting president, Mr. Temer faces great difficulties to put the economy back in order, since unpopular measures are required that are very hard to be implemented in the midst of the current political turmoil.

Exchange Rate Populism

East Asian and Latin American economies present opposite exchange rate electoral cycles: exchange rates tend to be more depreciated before and appreciated after elections among East Asian economies, while the opposite is true in Latin America. We propose a explanation for these empirical findings where the driving force of the opposite exchange rate populism in these two regions is their difference in the relative size of tradable and non-tradable sectors, coupled with the distributive effect of exchange rates. In a setup where policy-makers differ in their preference bias towards non-tradable and tradable sectors, the exchange rate is used a noisy signal of the incumbents type in an uncertain economic environment. The mechanism behind the cycle is engendered by the incumbent trying to signal he is median voters type, biasing his policy in favor of the majority of the population before elections.

Political Economy of Exchange Rate Policy

Political motives drive governments into choosing particular exchange rate policies. This chapter analyzes distributive aspects of the exchange rate when the choice of exchange rate level is based on the conflicting interests of different sectors of the economy. The second part of the chapter examines exchange rate policy as a signal of the degree of government competence and the resulting electoral cycle. The third part considers fiscal policy and the way it affects the equilibrium real exchange rate.