The geographic dynamics of industry employment in Brazilian metropolitan areas: Lessons for São Paulo

Vol. 35 No. 3 (2015)

Jul-Sep / 2015
Published July 1, 2015
PDF-English
PDF-English

How to Cite

Biderman, Ciro, and Marcos Lopes. 2015. “The Geographic Dynamics of Industry Employment in Brazilian Metropolitan Areas: Lessons for São Paulo”. Brazilian Journal of Political Economy 35 (3):492-509. https://doi.org/10.1590/0101-31572015v35n03a07.

The geographic dynamics of industry employment in Brazilian metropolitan areas: Lessons for São Paulo

Ciro Biderman
Professor do Programa de Mestrado e Doutorado em Administração Pública e Governo da Fundação Getulio Vargas.
Marcos Lopes
Pesquisador do Centro de Estudos de Política e Economia do Setor Público.
Brazilian Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 35 No. 3 (2015), Jul-Sep / 2015, Pages 492-509

Abstract

We discuss historic trends in large metropolitan areas in Brazil showing that manufacturing has decreased its share in the country but the movement was, in general, more intense in large metropolitan areas and particularly in the São Paulo metropolitan area (SPMA). This movement was more intense in the 1980s and in the first half of the 1990s. From mid 1990’s up to the end of the 2000s, the manufacturing share trend became flat. We speculate that the first period reflects the exhaustion of the process of import substitution that took place in the previous three decades (1950 to 1980). The second period, from 1993 to 2009, is representative of a new model of growth and the evidence that manufacturing share became flat is reinforcing the idea of a new period in terms of manufacturing employment. While concentration has risen from 1996 to 2005, it decreased again in the second half of the first decade of the 2000s. The SPMA reinvented itself very quickly from late 1970s to mid-2000s.

JEL Classification: R10; R12.


Keywords: metropolitan areas industry concentration manufacturing services