Ensaios sobre crescimento e interrelação entre regiões

Abstract

This thesis proposes two essays on economic growth. These are inspired by various canonical structural models of growth that seek insights from a complex economic reality. Following the line of convergence models, the first chapter analyzes regional income convergence taking into consideration the interdependence between then. The first essay contributes to the literature by highlighting the importance of productive structure for the knowledge accumulation process, incorporating the Economic Complexity Index into the classic convergence model. The results point to the importance of economic complexity as well as the relevance of evaluating the model from the perspective of interdependence between regions. In the second essay, an extension of balance of payments-constrained growth models is made to incorporate the multilateralism of trade relations, evaluating income growth from this perspective. Here, the dependence of several countries on aggregate exports becomes evident, unlike a conventionally estimated bilateral perspective. The results indicate a correction of a possible bias present in the canonical model by incorporating the multilateralism of regions. In both chapters, empirical analyses are conducted using procedures related to spatial econometrics to evaluate the hypotheses raised.