Structural Changes and External Vulnerabilities in Brazilian Economy

This article aims to assess the evolution of external vulnerability and structural changes in terms of generating value added in the Brazilian economy in the period 1995-2009. By means of a novel treatment of the inter-sectoral output multipliers, we subdivided this period into three sub-periods, namely 1995-2000, 2000-2005 and 2005 -2009. The database was the annual input-output matrices from Brazil for 1995, 2000, 2005 and 2009, structured into 42 sectors. The main results indicated a very satisfactory behavior of the national economy over time, with a predominance of positive gains in the ability to generate value added and lower imports of intermediate inputs.This included the most technologically advanced industries and services.There were fewer losses and greater external dependence for the minority of sectors, particularly in recent years.