A critique to the usual economic indicators of de-industrialization in Brazil

ABSTRACT

A critique to the usual economic indicators of de-industrialization in Brazil. The debate on de-industrialization has gained special prominence in Brazil, but methodological issues concerning the economic indicators used to evaluate this process are rarely discussed. This paper presents a critical evaluation of two common indicators in the Brazilian economic literature: the share of industry in GDP and the ratio VTI/VBPI. While the first measure shows sharp fluctuations due to changes in methodology, the second appears to be very sensitive to exchange rate variations and does not capture the inter-industry differences. Thus, the results show that both indicators contain problems and may lead to misleading conclusions about the national productive structure.

KEYWORDS:
de-industrialization; Dutch disease; specialization