Mauricio Mesquita Moreira

Regional Integration and Productivity: The Experiences of Brazil and Mexico

This paper discusses the impacts of integration on productivity, specifically within regional agreements. The paper focuses on the economies of Brazil and Mexico and on their performance in the manufacturing sector. The authors estimate firm-level productivity and test its casual links with trade and foreign direct investment (FDI) variables. The results suggest strong trade related gains, with import discipline emerging as the dominant effect. The results on learning-by-exporting were mixed, with gains restricted to Brazils regional and worldwide exports. On FDI, foreign firms appear to have had a positive impact on their buyers and suppliers in Mexico, but in Brazil, the overall impact was statistically insignificant on productivity levels and negative on productivity growth.

Brazil’s Trade Liberalization and Growth: Has it Failed?

Unfulfilled expectations about economic growth in Brazil has led many observers to question the ability of the new, open trade regime to put the economy back on an path of sustainable growth. Whereas the country’s growth record has been really poor, the evidence suggests that the underlying causes had nothing to do with trade. Quite the contrary. This paper shows that trade liberalization has given an important contribution to two of the main drivers of growth: productivity and investment in physical capital. It argues that these gains were not turned into growth due to an unfavorable macro and institutional environment. It also claims that Brazil could have enjoyed more gains from trade, had it pursued a more aggressive trade policy at home and abroad. The paper concludes by outlining the main issues of a pro- growth, trade policy agenda for the country.

Brazil's Trade Policy: Old and New Issues

This paper examines this agenda and argues that if Brazil really wants to fully enjoy the growth and welfare benefits of trade, it needs to further lower and rationalize its structure of protection; adopt a more aggressive, World Trade Organization-plus, policy to open markets abroad; design a regional integration strategy that makes sense to its smaller partners; and bring trade facilitation, particularly transport costs, to the core of its trade agenda

Integration, Resource Reallocation and Productivity: The Cases of Brazil and Chile

Most microeconometric studies available for LAC have focused on measuring the direct impact of trade on plant productivity leaving aside other effects that arise through the market selection process. Additionally, most studies have focused on tariff barriers as the only obstacle to international trade and integration. In this paper we use data from Brazil and Chile to analyze how trade affects aggregate productivity through the process of resource reallocation and to explore not only the role of tariffs but also the role of transport costs. We find that trade costs affect the reallocative process by protecting inefficient producers, lowering their likelihood to exit, and also by limiting the expansion of efficient plants, lowering their likelihood to export. We also find that the reallocative impacts of trade come not only from tariff barriers but also from transport costs.

Korea: New Frontiers in the Asia-Latin America Relationship

Trade between Korea and Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) experienced an unprecedented boom beginning in the early 2000s. Following the broader course of Asia-LAC relations, this trade surge was driven by strong resource complementarity between the two economies and fast growth in Asia, which led to a commodities-for-manufacturing trade pattern typical of the region’s trade with Asia. At the same time, the Korea-LAC relationship distinguishes itself from the overall Asia-LAC pattern in several important respects. First, the region’s exports to Korea have included a higher share of manufacturing products and are more diversified overall than is the case with China or Japan. In addition, the trade surge of the early 2000s was followed by a strong inflow of Korean FDI in LAC, which has overwhelmingly targeted manufacturing sectors, helping to further diversify the relationship. Finally, Korea has established an extensive network of free-trade agreements (FTAs) in the region, beginning with the first Asia-LAC FTA with Chile in 2004, alongside a robust cooperation agenda in diverse policy areas. Investment and cooperation thus helps further diversify the economic relationship beyond the commodities-for-manufacturing pattern of trade. This document reviews the evolution of Korea-LAC economic ties since the early 2000s, highlighting how the relationship stands out from the broader Asia-LAC story and identifying the key challenges to strengthen the relationship moving forward.

Infrastructure and Export Performance in the Pacific Alliance

The launch of negotiations over the Pacific Alliance (PA) in 2011 gave new life to regional integration in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). With more pragmatic, market-oriented expectations and a more functional architecture than prior agreements, the PA offers a clear way out of the predicaments currently being faced by other integration initiatives in the region. It has broken new ground by embracing issues that have traditionally been neglected by trade negotiations, even when the data suggested that these issues should be contemplated. This has been the case, for instance, with transport costs, which have long overtaken tariffs to become the most important obstacle to trade in the region. PA leaders have been quick to move beyond declarations of intent and have set up a fund to address the PAs most pressing infrastructure needs.

Where Is Brazil Going? Taking Stock of Recent Trends in Industrial and Trade Policies and the Challenges Ahead

Brazil’s trade and industrial policies in the last decade has taken an increasingly sharp turn towards boosting and protecting the local manufacturing industry, particular after the 2008 financial crisis. This paper reviews these policies and their initial results and argues that, while they have brought some short-term relief, they have done so at the cost of undermining the fundamentals of long-term growth. The country’s recent lackluster economic performance—an unfortunate combination of high inflation, low growth, and a deteriorating current account deficit seem to confirm this view.

El impacto de los costes de transporte en el comercio de Latinoamérica y el Caribe .

El presente articulo resume un informe preparado por el Banco Interamericano de Desarrollo sobre el impacto de los costes de transporte en el comercio de Latinoamerica y el Caribe. A partir de un solido analisis tecnico (con bases de datos de gran tamano y detalle) y una serie de estudios de casos, aporta una completa vision de la importancia de los costes de transporte como barrera para el comercio de la region. Apela a una agenda de integracion mas amplia y equilibrada centrada no solo en las barreras de comercio tradicionales, sino tambien en los costes (como los asociados a la infraestructura relacionada con el transporte).