Ensaios sobre a histerese nas relações econômicas : a hipótese aplicada ao desemprego e ao crescimento econômico

Abstract

In the global economic scenario, events such as the 2007 global financial crisis and the Brazilian economic crisis in 2014, arouse interest in the persistence of high unemployment rates seen in the post-crisis period, as well as in the difficulty of recovery, in terms of growth after such events. In addition, with the current economic recession, resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic, and the uncertainties of the future, there is a favorable moment for empirical analysis on the subject. Thus, this dissertation comprises two essays that verify the hypothesis of hysteresis in the Brazilian context. The first essay investigates, through unit root tests (linear tests, structural breaks, long memory, and panel tests), the hysteresis applied to unemployment in Brazil, between the first quarter of 2012 and the first quarter of 2021. The second essay analyzes, by estimating a structural VEC model (SVEC), the presence of hysteresis in Brazilian economic growth, between January 2000 and June 2021. The results indicate that the persistence of high levels of unemployment and the stagnation of the national growth rate contemplates the hypothesis of hysteresis for Brazil. It was found that exogenous shocks in the economy caused permanent deviations in unemployment and the Brazilian product during these periods. Such results are in agreement with the economic literature analyzed.