Seminar presents study on determinants of productivity in Brazil
Long-term productivity growth in Brazil is dependent on greater investments in technology, information, infrastructure, workforce development and a better business environment. This is the main diagnosis of the second volume of Produtividade no Brasil: desempenho e determinantes (Productivity in Brazil: performance and determinants), recently published by Agência Brasileira de Desenvolvimento Industrial (ABDI, Brazilian Agency for Industrial Development) and Instituto de Pesquisa Econômica Aplicada (IPEA, Institute of Applied Economic Research).
The main ideas discussed in the volume’s 19 chapters (written by 37 scholars) will be presented by Fernanda De Negri, an economist from IPEA and co-organizer of the book, at a seminar at the IEA on December 9, at 2.30 pm, organized by the Innovation and Competitiveness Observatory Research Group/NAP (OIC). The event will be hosted by Mario Salerno, coordinator of the OIC.
In April, during a seminar organized by the OIC, De Negri expounded the first volume of the study, dedicated to the dynamics of productivity in Brazil.
In the presentation of the second volume, IPEA’S president, Jessé Souza recalls that the need for more in-depth studies on Brazilian productivity, its evolution and its determining factors began to be discussed in late 2012 at ABDI and IPEA.
At that time, says Souza, “several economists were already pointing out that productivity indicators were increasing at a lower rate and that resumption of economic growth would depend more and more on how this variable evolved.”
At the same time, government officials increasingly insisted that “maintaining and enhancing the social gains of the previous decade is not only crucial, but will depend on greater increases in efficiency and productivity.”
However, more than diagnosing how productivity might evolve, stresses Souza, it is necessary to identify more precisely the causes of the country’s sluggish growth and to seek the deeper, structural causes of low Brazilian productivity, something that has concerned economists for more than 30 years. According to IPEA’S president, only then will it be possible to formulate public policies aimed at increasing productivity.