Latin American Business: Equity Distortion in Regional Resource Allocation in Brazil

ISBN-13: 9780789035356 / Angielski / Twarda / 2007 / 242 str.

Werner Baer

Opis

Examine the costs and benefits of fiscal "wars" between Brazilian states

Latin American Business examines Brazil's use of fiscal incentives to attract investors to help remedy disparities in the country's regional distribution of income. Since the 1990s, individual Brazilian states have taken the initiative in trying to lure domestic and foreign firms to locate within their borders, targeting the automotive industry, textiles, and shoe production. But their efforts have led to mixed results and questions about whether these fiscal wars have been legitimate attempts at regional economic development or simply a distortion in the allocation of resources. This insightful collection of case studies and essays sheds considerable light on the issue.

For several generations, the notion has been debated both in advanced industrial countries and in developing countries that regional differences in income will gradually be eliminated as poor regions (where money is scare but labor is not) benefit from the inflow of investments. In reality, this has rarely happened; Latin American Business examines why that has been the case in Brazil. The book's contributors fuel this continuing debate, analyzing topics that include Bahia's efforts to attract a Ford plant, the Mercedes-Benz project in Juiz de Fora, the case of Renault in Parana, fiscal incentive programs in Pernambuco, and the tax incentive policies of Ceara.

Latin American Business includes:

• an evaluation of the costs and benefits of federal and state incentives given to Ford Motor Company to attract a plant in Bahia
  
• an analysis of the use of state and municipal incentives by the state of Minas Gerais in dealing with Mercedes-Benz Corporation
  
• a look at Parana's agreement with Renault and the degree to which it has created jobs and attracted other investments
  
• an examination of structural changes in the Brazilian automotive industry
  
• a look at the Brazilian automotive industry in the 1990s
  
• an evaluation of the results of Pernambo's fiscal incentives program from 1996 to 2003
  
• a discussion of the economic logic for tax incentives
  
• a look at the economic effects of regional tax incentives
  
• and much more

Latin American Business is an essential resource for academics, business practitioners, public policymakers, and anyone working in the international development community.

Spis treści

• Introduction (Werner Baer and Geoffrey Hewings)
• The Cost of a Structural Change: A Large Automobile Plant in the State of Bahia (Luiz Ricardo Cavalcante and Simone Uderman)
• Fiscal Incentives and Regional Development Projects: Mercedes-Benz in Juiz de Fora (MG)—Brazil 1996/1999 (Fernando Salgueiro Perobelli, Eduardo Amaral Haddad, Suzana Quinet de A Bastos, and Edgard Pimentel)
• The Automobile Industry in Paraná: The Case of Renault (Ricardo Luis Lopes)
• Structural Change in the Brazilian Automobile Industry and Its Regional Impacts (Edmund Amann, Eduardo Haddad, Fernando Perobelli , and Joaquim Guilhoto)
• The Brazilian Automotive Industry in the Nineties (Kerlyng Cecchini, Joaquim Guilhoto, Geoffrey J.D. Hewings, and Chokri Dridi)
• Pernambuco’s Fiscal Incentives Program: An Evaluation of Recent Performance (André Matos Magalhães and Liedje Siqueira)
• Industrial Development from Tax Incentives: With Special Application to Ceará (Marcos Costa Holanda and Francis Carlo Petterini)
• Economic Effects of Regional Tax Incentives: A General Equilibrium Approach (Alexandre Porsse, Eduardo Amaral Haddad, and Eduardo Pontual Ribeiro)
• Index
• Reference Notes Included

O autorze

Baer, Werner; Hewings, Geoffrey