Replacing Pis and Cofins - and Why Not the Cpmf? - by a Non-Cumulative Contribution
Cascading taxes are responsible in Brazil for almost 25% of total revenue raised by the three levels of government. This is harmful to the country's economic performance and to her international trade balance. In this paper, the sectoral burdens of Brazilian cascading social contributions, as well as their impacts on exports and imports, are estimated, and their harmful effects on the economy are discussed. Substitution of a value added contribution for the cascading ones is proposed. It is suggested that, in view of urgency and notwithstanding some sacrifice of its quality, the new tax be created simply by means of an ordinary law, without amending the Constitution. Most desirable features of the tax that can be created without changing the terms of the Brazilian Constitution are discussed. The uniform rate necessary to keep tax revenue constant and changes in sectoral tax payments that would arise are estimated.
Abertura comercial brasileira e instabilidade da demanda de importações
Este artigo analisa a politica brasileira de importacoes dos anos 80 e 90, com enfase nas medidas adotadas a partir do processo de liberalizacao comercial e seus efeitos sobre o valor das importacoes. Tambem e apresentado um modelo econometrico para a estimacao da demanda de importacoes no periodo entre 1980 e 1995, baseado no metodo de correcao de erros de Engle-Granger. Nele percebe-se a existencia de uma ruptura da estabilidade dos parâmetros associados as variaveis renda e capacidade instalada no primeiro trimestre de 1990. As medidas restritivas as importacoes, tarifarias e nao-tarifarias adotadas nos anos 80, ao mesmo tempo que eliminou o poder explicativo da renda sobre a variacao das importacoes, tornou o desempenho da capacidade instalada extremamente relevante para determinar o seu comportamento. Quando o processo de liberalizacao comercial avanca, a elasticidade-renda de longo prazo se torna significativamente elastica, enquanto a capacidade instalada perde consideravel parcela de seu poder explicativo.
Complexity, Network-Decisions And Alternative Risk Premia: Some New Theories Of Structural Change And Portfolio Decisions.
Structural Change is the basis for many decisions such as government fiscal and monetary policies, government interventions, corporate-expenditure decisions, corporate strategic decisions, portfolio management decisions in finance; household allocation decisions, etc.. Structural change in industries and national economies is increasingly more difficult to detect partly because of the growth and dominance of Complex Systems and “Networks” in modern industries and economies – such Networks and Complex Systems include GVCs (global value chains), retail store networks; franchising networks; internet networks; services networks; credit-chains in industries; online social networks; etc.. The relationship between Complexity and Structural Change is well established in the physics, applied math and economic dynamics literatures. Traditional definitions and modeling of structural change have erroneously focused on changes in labor, technological progress, market share, and or capital – which are grossly inadequate in the new economy and post- global financial crisis (as confirmed by changes in the global retailing and housing industries and other industries). Also the modeling of structural change seems to be constrained by the availability of data, and often omits the relationship between structural change on one hand, and globalization, financial stability and international financial contagion. This article: i) introduces the Operations Strategy Model of structural change, explains how it differs from the Lewis Model of Structural Change; and explains the often omitted relationship between operations strategy (of companies and government agencies) and structural change; ii) introduces other new Complexity-based models/theories of Structural Change in industries; iii) reviews the relationships among Operations Research, Complexity and Structural Change; iv) explains the symbiotic relationship between structural change on one hand, and economic growth, financial stability, financial contagion and globalization; v) discusses the significant gap between academic research and practice and explains some issues and factors that should be considered in the development and testing of structural change models; vi) explains how alternative risk premia can be generated from new models of Structural Change.