Crescimento econômico e convergência de renda nos municípios do Rio Grande do Sul (2000 - 2010)

Abstract

The theme of economic growth involves several questions, and the main of them is why certain Nations grow more than others. A form found in literature to answer such questions is the test of the hypothesis of convergence. Initially, such a proposal was developed by Solow (1956), which recommends that in the long run the Nations would converge to a steady-state common, since Nations that initially possessed a smaller income would tend to grow more than the Nations with higher levels of initial income. For several years, this concept as absolute convergence has been tested empirically by several researchers, which observed that there would be more variables to explain long-term economic growth. From the studies of Barro and Sala-i-Martin (1991; 1992), is known a new hypothesis of convergence: conditional convergence, in which not only is the initial income will influence in such a process, but the specific characteristics of each nation. The studies that have content focus on test the hypothesis of conditional and absolute convergence for the growth of per capita income. In this way, seeking to contribute to the literature of this field of study the present study analyzes the possibility of conditional and absolute convergence for income growth rate of different sectors of the economy (agriculture, industry and services) of the municipalities of Rio Grande do Sul during the period from 2000 to 2010. In addition to the initial income sectors, human capital variables were included, physical capital and increasing the workforce. The econometric tools used to achieve this goal is the spatial Econometrics. In order to know if the growth of GDP (gross domestic product) of different sectors follows a spatial pattern, i.e. if this phenomenon is influenced by space, Spatial Exploratory Data Analysis (ESDA). Subsequently, econometric models are estimated for each sector, in order to test the hypothesis of conditional and absolute convergence. With ESDA was possible to identify that the GDP growth rate of the agricultural and services sectors are influenced spatially, and can identify different levels of associations between the Gauchos municipalities. The only sector that did not provide such feature was the industrial sector. With the estimation of spatial models was evidenced the absolute and conditional convergence hypothesis for the industrial sector, while for other sectors the convergence hypothesis were not identified.