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From 1996 to 2016, Brazil faced great fluctuations in both its exchange and interest rates and simultaneously a huge growth of its agriculture has taken place. Examining the literature that deals with the relationships among these three variables (interest rate, exchange rate and agriculture GDP) we verified that monetary and exchange shocks can affect directly and/or indirectly (through relative prices) the agriculture GDP. However, these effects can be coincident or contrary between them. What actually happened in Brazil from 1996 to 2016? This article aimed to access the direct and indirect effects of monetary and exchange rate shocks on Brazil´s agriculture GDP taking into consideration years ranging from 1996 thru 2016. Using quarterly data for the 1996-2016 period, autoregressive vector models (VAR and VEC) were estimated. The exchange rate and monetary shocks were analyzed considering three different interest rate types, namely: the current Brazil´s Federal Funds Rate (Nominal SELIC rate), real interest rate of agricultural loans, and ex-ante real interest rate. We also analyzed the effect of the exchange rate separately on prices paid and on prices received by the agriculture (both make up the relative prices of agriculture) using an ARDL (Distributed Lag Self-Regressive Model) model with monthly data. Our econometric results revealed that both direct and indirect effects of monetary shocks were negative on the agriculture growth while the direct and indirect effects of exchange rate shocks were mutually contradictory themselves on the Brazil´s agriculture GDP. Because of the technical changes that have taken place during the 2000s and the 2010s, which turned some of the most representative crops more dependent on imported inputs, and the hedging behavior that the firms have adopted during the first two decades of the 21st century, which protects them from exchange oscillations, the agricultural sector lost sensitivity to the exchange rate variations in some extent. Regarding policy implications, it could be said that monetary policy can be efficient in the promotion of the agricultural sector, and, in fact, Brazilian government has been doing such through the rural credit subsidized interest rate. Exchange policy, on the other hand, proved to be inefficient in favoring the agriculture, or, in other words, the government can freely exercise exchange policy without regards to harm the agricultural sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

La exención tributaria se ha utilizado sistemáticamente en el Brasil para estimular la economía. En 2009, en un intento por contener la desaceleración económica, el Gobierno brasileño adoptó una política económica anticíclica, en la que se destacó la exención tributaria a los precios de los vehículos. ¿Por qué se escogió ese sector y no otro? Este artículo busca analizar los efectos de esa política sobre la economía brasileña en 2009, comparándola con una política de exención tributaria focalizada en el sector agropecuario. Sobre la base de un modelo de equilibrio general computable interregional (TERM-BR), se simulan y comparan las dos políticas de exenciones. Los resultados muestran que la reducción de tributos a los productos agropecuarios puede considerarse superior a la de los vehículos desde el punto de vista de sus efectos sobre el empleo, los ingresos, el consumo de las familias, el PIB y, especialmente, la distribución regional de la actividad económica y la distribución de los ingresos. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Se analiza la participación de los sectores agropecuario, de hidrocarburos y minería en el PIB de los países sudamericanos entre 1960 y 2014. Si bien la participación del sector agropecuario de los países sudamericanos presenta una tendencia a la baja, se observan aspectos comunes entre tres subgrupos de países. El primero está formado por los países fundadores del MERCOSUR, cuya balanza comercial de productos agropecuarios y agroindustriales fue superavitaria y en los que la participación del sector agropecuario volvió a crecer entre 2002 y 2007. El segundo subgrupo corresponde a los países andinos, donde la participación del sector agropecuario en el PIB disminuyó desde 1960, mientras la representatividad de la producción de hidrocarburos y minería fue en aumento, especialmente durante la década de 2000. El tercer subgrupo está integrado por Guyana y Suriname, donde la serie histórica de la participación del sector agropecuario presenta una forma de U invertida. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For Brazil to realize the economic benefits of competitive advantage, it is critically important that the country's policy makers have an awareness of the determinants of Brazilian exports. Our study aims to evaluate the role of human capital measured by the average years of workforce formal education, in the value of exports from each Brazilian state from 1995 through 2006, highlighting differences among the states and/or regions. Based on the Dixit and Woodland (1982) model, our empirical analysis is implemented by running a regression of data organized into a panel that takes into account the fixed effects (i.e., the amenities) found in each of the 27 Brazilian states (including the Federal District). Our findings are consistent with the selected theoretical model and indicate that human capital in Brazil has a nonlinear effect on exportation with an inflection point of 6.7 years of formal education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]