Promover a Indústria?

Querido diário:

Sempre fico amofinado (lembremos que Fabiano dirigia-se a seus kids com este epíteto) quando vejo que tem gente considerando que é melhor que o governo do Congo gaste em indústria do que gastar em educação. O Congo é casca, pois tem uma renda per capita inferior à de qualquer cachorro que preze banhar-se nas areias de Copacabana. Na linha de W. A. Lewis, se criares uma linha de crédito e começares a pagar as professorinhas, elas hão de gastar em roupas, perfumes, automóveis, jatinhos e os produtores de roupas, perfumes, automóveis e jatinhos vão contratar trabalhadores que comprarão roupas, perfumes, etc. e contratarão mais gente para ensinar violino a seus filhos, aquela roda viva, roda rica.

Ou ainda, o Congo mexendo-se no estilo chinês do Grande Salto para Frente (mas um salto decente...), para tudo no país e joga todo mundo a educar, a montar escolas, a preparar a água potável para a petizada, a campear roupas e tênis, bolas de futebol, aquele mundo todo de iniciativas do tipo que Olga adotou ao chegar no campo de concentração.

Por vias viárias cheguei ao seguinte artigo:

SZIRMAI, Adam (2009) Industrialisation as an engine of growth in developing countries. United Nations University - Maastricht Economic and social Research and training centre on Innovation and Technology. Working Paper #2009-010.

O autor, vê-se desde o início, é um entusiasta da tese de que a industrialização é a mãe do desenvolvimento econômico. Minha tese branda é que devemos promover políticas de serviços e não políticas industriais. A radical é que não é a industrialização que causa o desenvolvimento, mas os serviços, em particular aqueles serviços sociais formadores de capital humano. Pois bem, vejamos o que diz nosso autor às p.9-10:

Primeiro:

Per capita growth rates of GDP in the catch up economies vary from 5 to 9 per cent per year. GDP growth varies from 6 to 11.5 per cent. All examples of catch-up are associated with the widespread and rapid emergence of manufacturing. Industrialisation seems to be a key driver of catch up.

Depois:

In 1950, 41 per cent of developing country GDP originated in the agricultural sector. It declined dramatically to 16 per cent in 2005. It is worth noting that the average share of services in the advanced economies was already 40 percent in 1950, far higher than the total share of industry. Thus, the pattern of structural change in developing countries differs radically from the traditional patterns of structural change, in which the rise of industry precedes that of the service sector.

E depois:

There are powerful empirical and theoretical arguments in favour of industrialisation as the main engine of growth in economic development. The arguments can be summarised as follows:
1. There is an empirical correlation between the degree of industrialisation and per capita income in developing countries.
2. Productivity is higher in the industrial sector than in the agricultural sector. The transfer of resources from agriculture to manufacturing provides a structural change bonus.
3. The transfer of resources from manufacturing to services provides a structural change burden in the form of Baumol’s disease. As the share of the service sector increases, aggregate per capita growth will tend to slow down.
4. Compared to agriculture, the manufacturing sector offers special opportunities for capital accumulation in developing countries. Capital accumulation can be more easily realised in spatially concentrated manufacturing than in spatially dispersed agriculture. This is one of the reasons why the emergence of manufacturing has been so important in growth and development. Capital intensity is high in mining, manufacturing, utilities and transport. It is much lower in agriculture and services. Capital accumulation is one of the aggregate sources of growth. Thus, an increasing share of manufacturing will contribute to aggregate growth.
5. The manufacturing sector offers special opportunities for economies of scale, which are less available in agriculture or services.
6. The manufacturing sector offers special opportunities for both embodied and disembodied technological progress (Cornwall, 1977). Technological advance is concentrated in the manufacturing sector and diffuses from there to other economic sectors such as the service sector.
7. Linkage and spillover effects are stronger in manufacturing than in agriculture or mining. Linkage effects refer to the direct backward and forward linkages between different sectors. Linkage effects create positive externalities to investments in given sectors. Spillover effects refer to the disembodied knowledge flows between sectors. Spillover effects are a special case of externalities which to refer to externalities of investment in knowledge and technology. Linkage and spillover effects are presumed to be stronger within manufacturing than within other sectors. Linkage and spillover effects between manufacturing and other sectors such as services or agriculture are also very powerful.
8. As per capita incomes rise, the share of agricultural expenditures in total expenditures declines and the share of expenditures on manufactured goods increases (Engel’s law).
Countries specialising in agricultural and primary production will not profit from expanding world markets for manufacturing goods. These arguments are frequently mentioned in the literature and are often considered self-evident,
though the recent literature increasing questions whether manufacturing will continue to be the engine of growth. We examine the empirical support for these arguments. In doing so, we may find that some of the arguments need to be qualified. They should also be considered in a temporal perspective. The applicability of different arguments may well differ in different historical contexts. The sources of growth change over time.

E agora isto:

It is also not surprising that labour productivity in the capital intensive mining sector is far higher than that in manufacturing. The results with regard to services are more puzzling. Between 1950 and 1970, labour productivity in the service sector in Latin American countries is much higher than in manufacturing. If this is not due to measurement error, this would suggest that transfer of resources to services would provide a higher static shift effect than to manufacturing, which is counterintuitive. From 1980 onwards, however, productivity in manufacturing is substantially higher than in services, which is more in line with our expectations.

Ou seja, ele mesmo reconhece que havia algo de intrinsecamente diverso no crescimento dos "developing countries", que eram pura agricultura e -acrescento eu- analfabetismo, comparativamente às "advanced economies". E mais ainda, tá na cara que aquela mudança nos anos 1980s é o que chamam erroneamente de "desindustrialização", que -no Brasil, pelo menos- é uma aplicação errônea do conceito que contemplava elevação do PIB e redução do emprego e ainda aumento da participação no comércio mundial. O que aconteceu no Brasil foi que meteram na rua milhões de trabalhadores, levando-nos àquele milagre do emprego do governo Lula.

E depois tem isto:

In many service sectors, the possibilities for productivity growth are limited due to the inherently labour intensive nature of service production. This implies that an increasing share of services results in a productivity slowdown (Baumol’s law). Such service sectors include personal services, restaurants and hotels, health care and medical services and government. What productivity improvement there is, often takes the place of reducing quality of output or
simply providing less services for the same price, so it should not show up in productivity indices if these were correctly measured using hedonic price indices.
Baumol’s law has recently come under fire, because there are some very important market service sectors such as the financial sector and sales and distribution where there are major productivity improvements, based on ICT technologies.

A mim me parece que a encrenca reside mesmo por aqui. A imagem do quinteto para cordas de Baumol elevar a produtividade tornando-se um quarteto... Mas a verdade é que os tempos mudaram. Ao argumentar acima que a desindustrialização brasileira é fake, não calculei -mas poderia- exatamente qual é o tamanho absoluto da indústria de transformação comparado com o resto (e, na verdade, o que interessa mesmo é -a meu ver- a metal-mecânica, a eletro-eletrônica e a química, e ainda assim apenas os segmentos produtores de bens de capital ou intermediário. Parece-me que isto se perde no turbilhão da produção dos demais setores industriais, da agricultura e dos serviços.

Quero dizer: os setores que destaquei não têm mais poder, numa economia como a brasileira, de liderar crescimento, pois representam uma fração muito reduzida do total.

Pedaço da conclusão da p. 35:

In this paper I have presented an overview of theoretical arguments and some empirical evidence for the proposition that in the past fifty years, manufacturing has functioned as an important engine of growth in developing countries. statistical evidence is not straightforward. Manufacturing has been important, but not all expectations are borne out by the data.

E que eu concluo? Que é melhor gastar em educação,  mesmo no Congo! Uma mistura de mobilização maoísta, de Olga Benário, de Paulo Freire, essa turma toda. Democráticos!

DdAB
Imagem daqui. É mesmo a guerra civil no Congo. Para não morrer de desesperança, penso que algum futuro haveria se fizessem escola de formação de soldados e oficiais, hehehehe, se é que pode rir disto!