Dívida externa e crescimento econômico: uma estratégia de longo prazo para o caso brasileiro

The present essay aim at using economic growth optimization and foreign debt development models to simulate the Brazilian economic system so as to attain its better management and greater stabilization, eventual1y leading to an ulterior debt reduction. The cost-benefit ratio of the foreign resources inflow was appraised so that a systematic approach to the economic growth and indebtedness alternatives could be implemented. The models advanced, whose main goal is to lay the foundations of a Brazilian economic scheming (given a 20 year period), borrow their methodology from the linear programming rudiments, taking into account that a) consumption levels will be in their highest during the project and afterwards (benefits) and b) the foreign debt-service charges will be at their minimum level (costs) as long as the project is under way. Besides the definition equations and the structural and behavioural constraints - often used in economic programming models - certain political limitations were included (such as a lower limit for the growth of per capita consumption and a relative ceiling for the foreign debt development) in order to prevent either undesirable social unsteadiness or unattainable institutional expectations from happenning.