Rent seeking and business organizations: an explanatory study of business organization’s role during Brazil’s trade liberalization era

Submitted by Timothee Bouyer (tim.bouyer@gmail.com) on 2017-04-19T22:08:23Z No. of bitstreams: 1 FGV Final revised version 19_04.pdf: 1217717 bytes, checksum: 77001b2736323e90abaf88ece7941b89 (MD5) === Approved for entry into archive by Josineide da Silva Santos Locatelli (josineide.locatelli@fgv....

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Bouyer, Timothee Francois Marie Andre
Other Authors: Silva, Marcos Fernandes Gonçalves da
Language:English
Published: 2017
Subjects:
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/10438/18189
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Summary:Submitted by Timothee Bouyer (tim.bouyer@gmail.com) on 2017-04-19T22:08:23Z No. of bitstreams: 1 FGV Final revised version 19_04.pdf: 1217717 bytes, checksum: 77001b2736323e90abaf88ece7941b89 (MD5) === Approved for entry into archive by Josineide da Silva Santos Locatelli (josineide.locatelli@fgv.br) on 2017-04-20T11:40:43Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 FGV Final revised version 19_04.pdf: 1217717 bytes, checksum: 77001b2736323e90abaf88ece7941b89 (MD5) === Made available in DSpace on 2017-04-20T12:08:45Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 FGV Final revised version 19_04.pdf: 1217717 bytes, checksum: 77001b2736323e90abaf88ece7941b89 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2017-03-13 === Brazil partially shifted from state-led development to market economy following its switch to democracy. This affected the economy in two ways: first the state initiated a wave of privatization in the wake of the fiscal crisis under President Collor. Second, the economy started opening up to international competition through the enactment of certain trade reforms. However, the economy still displays erratic levels of protectionism. The literature on rent seeking argues that organized interest groups devote resources to capture and try to influence and neutralize the liberalization of the economy, which would endanger the rents they benefit from under existing rules. After decades of state nurturing under the ISI model, the business sector in Brazil was crucial to shaping the path for a new growth model. However, their role in promoting trade openness was far more nuanced. The present work looks at business groups in Brazil since the second half of the twentieth century and the role they played before and during the transition and how their opposition to trade reforms suggests potential rentseeking behaviors. The transition to democracy witnessed the emergence of new business organizations with independent actions that I will account for in this paper. Business organizations were not united at the time of economic reforms and thus reacted differently according to the interests of their members. Institutional factors, amongst which the rise of a new civil society, as well as conjectural factors further constrained the path of economic reforms. === O Brasil sofreu uma parcial mudança, do desenvolvimento estatal à economia de mercado, em seguimento à sua transição à democracia. A economia abriu-se para o comércio internacional, mas ainda hoje apresenta níveis erráticos de protecionismo. O fenômeno da rent-seeking (“busca de renda”) destaca a tentativa de grupos organizados em captar recursos estatais para atividades improdutivas. Como consequência direta, este fenômeno dificulta a realização de reformas comerciais, como grupos de pressão organizados (lobbies), com o fim de proteger os seus próprios interesses. Depois de décadas de modelo de industrialização via substituição de importações (ISI model) incentivado pelo Estado, o setor de negócios no Brasil demonstrou-se crucial para moldar o caminho em direção a reformas econômicas. O presente trabalho analisa o papel desenvolvido pelos grupos empresariais, antes e durante esta transição, e examina como a sua oposição a abertura econômica sugere provável busca de renda. Este trabalho argumenta que as limitações da estrutura corporativa combinadas com o surgimento de novos grupos de pressão, concorrentes entre si, fragmentou a intermediação de interesses. Paradoxalmente, essa fragmentação de interesses e fraqueza coletiva de grupos de pressões limitou os obstáculos as reformas econômicas. O surgimento de uma nova sociedade civil e os fatores institucionais do regime democrático são outros fatores quem dificultaram a criação de reformas econômicas.