Fiscal Austerity, Regional Impacts and Productivity Gains: Projections for the Brazilian Economy

Abstract

This article aims to project the variation in labor productivity in response to structural reforms in Brazil necessary to offset the contractionary impacts of this agenda, considering regional heterogeneities. For this, a dynamic interregional general equilibrium model is used for 27 Brazilian federative units, allowing a bottom-up analysis. The main results show that the increase in labor productivity necessary to mitigate the contractionary effects of fiscal consolidation varies considerably between the Federation Units, relatively more onerous to the Northeast region. Macroeconomic results also follow the same pattern of regional heterogeneity. The increase in labor productivity in the states most affected by the contractionary impacts of austerity is hardly feasible due to the low prospect of household consumption, falling investment and high unemployment in a sectoral composition that has little benefit from the austerity and reforms agenda.