This paper sketches some basic features of the pattern of finance prevailing during the Korean process of heavy industrialization in the seventies, as well as the financial restructuring by which the Korean economy managed to cross over the foreign debt crisis in the eighties. Emphasis is laid upon Korean privatization of state banking and corresponding foreign liabilities, as contrasted to the state absorption in the Brazilian case.

In Brazil there is a general consensus that fiscal adjustment measures are required to obtain price stability. Nevertheless this appears as an empty consensus because it is stated as general propositions with little operational content. This article intends to go a little further presenting fiscal issues and reforms related to the theory of fiscal federalism. It is argued that most of macroeconomic fiscal problems arises from an unclear division of duties between federal and state and local governments. Political resistances to change are reported and a scheme of fiscal federalism combined with revenue sharing is proposed as a way to overcome the obstacles to reform since it associates local demand diversity with regional income redistribution.

This article analyzes the influence exercised by the so-called “American model” on the setting up of the institutional framework which allowed the consolidation of scientific competence in Economics in Brazil. It shows the principal mechanisms through which the patterns established in the developed countries, in the USA in particular, were incorporated into the studies of Economics in Brazil; and also the resistance met by the process of internationalization or Americanization in some areas of the university environment in the country. The data and tables organized offer a quantitative dimension of this process.

This paper presents a reflection about the contemporary agricultural crisis in the developed countries. We try to show that it results not only from the supply/demand disequilibrium, as it is supposed by the majority of the analysts, but also by what we consider as structural factors of the technological modernization pattern. It seems that, by ecological reasons, it is over the historical trend of increasing agricultural labor productivity which allowed the farmers income to rise and the agricultural prices to fall. In these countries the farmers income has been reduced compared to that of urban workers. The only solution for this problem would be transforming of the agricultural producers into agroindustrial producers.

This paper deals with the relation between money and value in Marx’s work. It has three purposes. The first (section 1) is to criticize Brunhoff’s approach to this subject in “Money in Marx” (1978). The second (section II) is to demonstrate that this conception may imply results that seem inadequate to a correct comprehension of capitalism. Finally, section III aims to reply some critical considerations made by Mollo (1991) about Fausto’s approach to the question. Attention is called to methodological and theoretical aspects in the paper as a whole.

Deregulation and antitrust enforcement revival are two recent tendencies in developed and third world countries as well. At first sight, they seem inconsistent as deregulation stresses the free market organization, while antitrust policy limits private business strategies. This paper discusses the economic reasons for regulation and antitrust enforcement and the relationship between industrial and antitrust policies. Some historical examples are brought to the discussion, including the Brazilian experience.

This article discusses the question of the relationship between the degree of centralization of the price-decision-making process of economic agents and the inflation rate. There are compared in a theoretical model, the conventional wisdom that postulates a positive relationship between the two variables, the so-called “neo-corporativist” vision that puts exactly the opposite conclusions, and an alternative conciliating the other two that will be our principal focus. We will also analyse the behavior of organizations in the economy based on the Olson work, taking some interesting implications to the model. It’s put in perspective the question of the Brazilian union organization based on the model.

Innovative practices in leading Brazilian companies have been noted in a number of recent research publications. Innovations have occurred mainly in the fields of technology, organization and in the production and labour processes. How far and deep would these recent changes need to develop and diffuse in order to constitute a national model of production and labour management? This article explores the alternatives available to Brazil in the 1990s by balancing the potential of these changes for growth — or for stagnation — in face of recent international trends towards new production and labour management styles.

The paper provides historical data of inflationary tax and inflationary transfers to commercial banks in Brazil

The paper tries to demonstrate that the fundamental aim of Keynes' work as an economist was to solve important issues in economic theory and not, as commonly said, to influence public policy. Indeed his vision of economics as a moral science, that employs introspection and judgements of value, prevents him of commiting the Ricardian Vice, so that the Schupeterian charge is groundless. The work concludes that Keynes was aware of the Senior Indetermination.

Contrary to the huge development of the Brazilian economy from the post-war to the end of the seventies, the eighties signified the rupture of this cycle and the combination of a chronic inflationary process, the economic stagnation and the worsening of income inequality. These factors together has not revealed to be neutral concerning the distributive aspect. Between 1981 and 1989, the income of the 10 per cent richer increased 14,2 per cent, while the income of the 20 per cent poorer decreased 26 per cent. This work presents some international comparisons, even on the fuctional as well as on the personal distribution of income, and concludes that this distribution becomes a fundamental aspect the stabilization and to the economic-social development recovering.

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