Impacto do gasto público social sobre o crescimento econômico brasileiro

Abstract

The aim of this work is to analyze the effects of public social spending in Brazil s economic growth, through the lens of Barro s endogenous growth model (1990). The importance of the approach used is highlighted by two issues: i) a relevant increase of federal social public spending in relation to GDP, in the last decade; ii) the distortions generated in the economy by the increase in the level of public spending and, as a consequence, in the increase of the taxation needed to finance it. The results presented here provide evidence that the interaction of these effects might produce qualitatively different paths of product and well-being; both in respect to the evolution of social indicators and to the growth of per capita income rate, as well as in the distortive dimension of increasing tax burden. Thus, it is possible to state that the maintenance of an expansionary fiscal policy in coming years might produce a significant negative impact on the GDP growth rate. This study was based on the study of more than six hundred government programs from 2001 to 2008 in its categorization to build the database and make a brief analysis of the evolution of social expenditures in the same period.