Performance of Brazilian total factor productivity from 2004 to 2014: a sectoral and regional analysis

Abstract This paper aimed to study the behavior of Brazilian productivity between 2004 and 2014 and its impact on growth in a disaggregated analysis. To this end, performance was studied by examining the measurement of total factor productivity and was also based on sectoral and regional aggregation in an attempt to verify which sectors and regions contributed most to the low aggregate productivity in Brazil, considering the few disaggregated studies on productivity. In addition, based on the estimates, a growth decomposition was performed to verify the contribution of productivity to economic growth. Additionally, econometric methodologies were used to calculate productivity in order to verify whether the results obtained were similar, using panel estimates with pooled data, fixed effects, and a dynamic panel in level and differences. Among the results, it was verified that there was higher productivity growth in services and that there was a decrease in industry. The regions that achieved better performance were the North, Northeast, and Center-West, depending on the sector analyzed. In addition, considering all the regions, only industry contributed negatively to growth, except in the Center-West. Regarding econometrics, the pooled data model presented the best results