The dynamics of Brazilian agriculture growth: a multisector growth model approach

• Grant number: 11/01043-0
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships abroad - Research
• Start date: August 01, 2011
• End date: July 31, 2012
• Field of knowledge: Applied Social Sciences - Economics - Agrarian and Natural Resource Economics
• Principal Investigator: Humberto Francisco Silva Spolador
• Grantee: Humberto Francisco Silva Spolador
• Host Investigator: Terry L. Roe
• Host Institution: Escola Superior de Agricultura Luiz de Queiroz (ESALQ). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Piracicaba , SP, Brazil
• Institution abroad: University of Minnesota (U of M), United States

Abstract

The aim of this research is to investigate potential determinants between the performance of Brazilian agriculture sector and economic growth. My research activities will be held at the University of Minnesota, advised by Professor Terry Roe, and in collaboration with his colleagues of the Department of Applied Economics at the UMN from 2011 to 2012. Specifically, a growth diagnosis, using the multisector Ramsey model, will be investigated to the Brazilian agricultural sector. I intend to fit a multisector Ramsey model to find out which are the most important determinants such as labor, inputs, capital stock to the Brazilian agriculture economic growth. The research will mostly cover the period after the economic openness on the 1990s. One of my objectives is also to incorporate some of the most important parameters of the Brazilian economy on a growth model known as Ramsey stylized multi-sector, that will be assembled with data from Global Trade Analysis Project (GTAP) and IBGE, organized in a social accounting matrix (SAM). This methodology has been widely used by the World Bank, USDA / ERS, USAID and the European Commission to analyze economic development policies but, to my best knowledge, no studies have been done for Brazil so far. The growing recognized importance of agricultural sector will be corroborated by my research, and I expect that the results will provide subsidies for public policies to promote a sustainable economic growth of agricultural sector and, consequently, of the Brazilian economy as a whole. My choice for Professor Terry Roe is that he is a well known economist in growth. He developed a multisector growth model related to the agriculture which I am interested in; moreover, professor Roe seems to be also very interested in establishing a research group to continue developing studies about the Brazilian agriculture which I see as a great opportunity to me and my future students in this field. (AU)