STRUCTURAL CHANGE AND LABOR PRODUCTIVITY IN BRAZIL IN THE 2000s: STRUCTURAL BONUS OR STRUCTURAL BURDEN?

ABSTRACT

This article aims to analyze how structural changes in the Brazilian economy contributed to labor productivity growth between 2000 and 2018. To answer this question, structural indicators of the Brazilian economy are analyzed by decomposing the labor productivity of each economic activity for the aggregate result, considering employment share and relative prices effects. This work also provides a new systematization of the specialization pattern in the Brazilian economy regarding structural bonus or structural burden, analyzing them based on sector classifications. Our results suggest that the weak aggregate productivity growth until 2013 is more associated with a loss of productive efficiency in the industry and technology-intensive services than with a possible deindustrialization. However, the Brazilian economy showed signs of structural burden up from 2013; that is, a structural change towards activities with lower productivity growth, resulting from a more recent process of deindustrialization and increased participation of employment in low-tech services.

KEYWORDS:
structural change; productivity; deindustrialization; Brazilian economic