Intervenção Estatal e Desigualdades Regionais no Brasil: contribuições ao debate contemporâneo

This paper brings light to some connections between the crisis of state intervention and regional inequalities in contemporary Brazil. For such, a macroeconomic approach for public expenditures is developed, focusing on public investment - in both public administration and state enterprises - and on some instruments of governmental credit to stimulate the private spending in investment. It shows that the role played by the government to reduce inter-regional disparities in per capita income has markedly diminished in the recent decade. One consequence that arises is that the government has lost its capacity to define growth trajectories in the regional economies: when one compares the regional economic growth rates among 1960-1989 (strong state intervention), 1980-1989 (the "lost decade") and 1990-2002 (liberal inspiration) periods, the latter presents the weakest performance. Another negative consequence is related to the private sector that has, in absence of public planning, considered to locate in more developed areas of the country. These points explain why the convergence process has no longer put forward as it was until 1985.