TD NEREUS 12-2011
Flávio V. Vieira and Eduardo A. Haddad
The main goal of this work is to investigate the role of trade weighted real exchange rate and foreign income on state export performance in Brazil from 1996 to 2009 using panel data analysis. We extended our model to incorporate commodity prices and state GDP. The results for the fixed effect models suggest that state exports are price (real exchange rate) and income (foreign) inelastic, and commodity prices and state GDP are relevant variables with positive estimated coefficients. The results for the two-step system GMM models, controlling for the number of instruments, indicate that the estimated coefficients for the lagged exports are positive and significant; the estimated coefficients for the trade weighted real exchange rate are all negative (expected sign) and statistically significant and price (exchange rate) inelastic; the estimated coefficients for the trade weighted foreign GDP are positive (expected sign) and significant and state exports are income inelastic; the estimated coefficients for state GDP are positive and significant in most estimated models showing that state size does matter for the state export performance in Brazil.