Impactos produtivos da infra-estrutura no Brasil – 1950/95

Abstract

This article studies the behavior of the Brazilian infrastructure sector from 1950 through 1995. We construct new aggregate series of investment and capita, disagregated series by subsectors (energy, transportation, telecommunications etc.) as well as physical measures of capital stock such as paved roads and telephone lines. These series are substantially longer than the series previously available and are used to estimate long-run output labor productivity and total factor productivity (TFP) elasticities. Our results show a strong relationship between infrastructure in one hand and output and productivity on the other. At the aggregate level we estimated a long-run output elasticity between 0.55 and 0.61. At the disagregate level, the transportation and energy sectors had the highest estimated impact on output and productivity. Similar results were obtained with the TFP series and physical measures of infrastructure.