Efeitos econômicos de longo prazo dos mecanismos fiscais sobre P&D em educação e saúde pública no Brasil

Abstract

Investments in Research and Development (R&D) and the creation of Knowledge Capital are the main drivers of long-term economic growth, as described by the theory of endogenous growth. Although historically well-established in the literature, it was only with the process of globalization and the emergence of the Knowledge Economy that they became central figures. In Brazil, this scenario gained greater relevance from the 2000s onwards. During this period, scenarios of budgetary instability and fiscal constraints have triggered pressures on the country's economic structure, especially in sectors such as Education and Public Health. In the Brazilian economy, these two activities comprise the largest share of national public R&D, representing more than 60% of these investments. Although they have this representativeness, there is still a gap in the literature regarding the integrated analysis of these two segments in terms of their R&D resources. Thus, this thesis aims to measure the intrasectoral, sectoral, and macroeconomic impacts of the integrated expansion of R&D investments in Education and Public Health activities in Brazil. To this end, a national dynamic Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) model, called the Brazilian Intersectoral Model with Recursive Dynamics (BIM-RD), was used, which incorporates a Brazilian Social Accounting Matrix (SAM) into its theoretical structure. The model was extended with two additional features: i) R&D was treated as an investment for the creation of the Knowledge Capital stock; and ii) the components of Gross Fixed Capital Formation were integrated. Furthermore, six simulation scenarios were analyzed: i) four referring to a one-off shock increase of 1% in R&D between 2026 and 2041, considering the government's free budget (scenarios 1 and 2) and balanced via taxation (scenarios 3) and spending (scenario 4); and ii) two annual shocks of 0.3820% expansion in R&D, totaling an accumulation of 10% between 2026 and 2050. In these scenarios, the government budget operated under a balanced regime, presented as scenario 5 (through taxation) and scenario 6 (via spending). Within sectors, the knowledge propagation effect promotes long-term GDP growth. Sectorally, the expansion of R&D significantly alters the relative prices in the economy. Finally, R&D resources create Knowledge Capital in the Brazilian economy, based on the fiscal closing rule.