Instituição de ensino:

Fundação Getúlio Vargas - Escola de Pós-Graduação em Economia - (FGV-EPGE)

Programa:

Economia

Autor:

Leonardo Fonseca da Silva

Titulação:

Mestre

Ano de defesa:

2009

Link:

http://hdl.handle.net/10438/2718

Resumo:

I investigate the role of sectoral di§erences in labor productivity and the process of structural transformation (reallocation of labor across sectors) in accounting for the time path of aggregate productivity across six Latin American countries (Brazil, Chile, Argentina, Colombia, Mexico and Venezuela) during the period from 1950 to 2003. Although they have started the process of structural transformation in different times, all of them went through a common process. I consider a simple three-sector-model of structural transformation and calibrate it to the experience of the six latin american economies. I use the model to measure sectoral labor productivity diferences between these countries and the United States. I have found that the services sector can explain the recent decrease of labor productivity in Brazil, Argentina and Mexico, after these countries had gone through a catch up in relative productivity (considering the United States as a benchmark) during the period from 1950 to 1980. Among Latin American economies, only the Chilean one has been catching up in relative productivity from 1980 to the present. There are some cases like Colombia, Mexico and Venezuela that the ineficiency of all sectors was responsible for the failure in reducing the gap of productivity in relation to the United States during the last years of the sample.

Orientador:

Pedro Cavalcanti Ferreira

Palavras-chave:

América Latina; Ajuste estrutural; Produtividade do trabalho; Setor de serviços