Trade, specialization and growth: a preliminary assessment of the Brazilian experience in the nineties

Developing countries have experienced important changes regarding trade and capital account policies in the past two decades. External liberalization may have important long-term effects on macroeconomic variables such as growth rates, employment, and the like. This paper explores a particular aspect of the relation between trade liberalization and economic growth: it emphasizes the expected effects of openness on the patterns of trade specialization, and the consequent impacts in terms of growth in the long run. After presenting some of the main theoretical findings on the matter, a preliminary assessment of the Brazilian experience in the 1990s is also made, discussing the effects of trade liberalization on the composition of Brazilian exports.