terça-feira, junho 28, 2011

O nosso retrato, o retrato de uma economia socialista

Um excelente artigo. Quando acabo de ler um artigo e olho para a lista de referências bibliográficas que fui sublinhando ao longo da sua leitura... reforço, ou não, a opinião com que fiquei do conteúdo.
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"Variety, Product Quality and Creative Destruction" de Pier-Paolo Saviotti e Andreas Pyka, apresentado em Abril deste ano é um artigo que vale a pena ler e sobre o qual vale a pena reflectir.
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"We maintain that the meaning of creative destruction depends on the interaction of three trajectories, constituted by the growth of productive efficiency, (Moi ici: A trajectória que assenta na redução dos custos, na redução dos desperdícios, no denominador da equação da produtividadethe emergence of completely new sectors (Moi ici: A inovação disruptiva que não cabe dentro dos sectores tradicionais) and the growing output quality and differentiation of incumbent sectors.(Moi ici: Cuidado com o termo qualidade. Qualidade pode ser menos defeitos e qualidade pode ser mais atributos. O termo qualidade usa-se indistintamente. Aqui, mais qualidade é mais atributos)"
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"We analyze the problem by means of our TEVECON model of economic development in which demand and innovation co-evolve to create the disposable income required for consumers to be able to purchase new goods and services. (Moi ici: O nosso modelo económico... o modelo mental dos nossos políticos está podre, estamos a regressar ao tempo pré-Henry Ford. Quem trabalha não tem direito a consumir. Consumir é pecado! Trabalha-se para exportar para que outros consumam. Como os políticos e académicos só associam aumento da produtividade a aumento de eficiência... ficam limitados)  Thus, we generate and compare a number of possible development paths. In particular, we focus on two paths, one without output quality change (Moi ici: Uma via só dependente do aumento da eficiência, da redução dos custos) and another one with a pronounced degree of output quality change. (Moi ici: Uma via com aposta no numerador, na eficácia, na subida na escala de valor potencial) The results of our calculations show that the rate of growth of employment would be faster in the scenario without quality change than in the high quality change, (Moi ici: Quando o emprego é a prioridade a consequência vem a seguir) but that such an outcome would be obtained at the price of persistently low wages, competencies and human capital. We interpret these results as well as the concept of creative destruction in the context of a mechanism of economic development in which demand, innovation, competencies, education levels, wages and product prices co-evolve."
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"Creative destruction is perhaps the best known concept in Schumpeter's work. Intuitively the concept encompasses the processes of creation and of destruction. Creation is introduced by innovations which provide consumers with increased welfare, producers with profits and that contribute to economic growth. Yet such process of creation is inevitably accompanied by the destruction of a part of the existing order. However, beyond the above general representation on which most scholars could probably agree, to provide a more accurate interpretation of creative destruction is problematic. We can identify different meanings of the concept:
  • 1) Substitution of pre-existing goods/services/technologies with newer and higher quality ones
  • 2) Gradual maturation of incumbent sectors by (a) falling labour intensity of mature sectors, (b) falling rate of growth of demand for mature sectors, (c) gradually increasing competencies/skills and wages as a consequence of the rising product quality within mature sectors
  • 3) Growing competition from emerging countries which acquire the capability to make the same goods and services as in highly developed countries bur at lower cost
Meaning N° 3 was probably not intended by Schumpeter but it has become of great significance in the present situation.
  • 4) The changing income distribution amongst different social groups and countries depending on their ability to create and exploit innovations. Thus, following the industrial revolution some countries remained behind and became underdeveloped by not being able to access and to exploit emerging technologies. Also, in the present wave of globalization social groups based in developed countries and linked to mature technologies in which a growing competition is coming from emerging countries tend to experience a fall in their income per capita relative to that of other social groups linked to competencies and professions where a temporary monopoly of developed countries still prevails.

In this paper we will not discuss meanings 3) and 4) but we will focus on the impact of the balance between the emergence of new sectors and the increasing product quality and differentiation within incumbent sectors."
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Conclusões:
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"In this paper we discussed the concept of creative destruction in the light of a model of economic development based on innovation driven structural change. We showed that such a concept cannot have the simplistic interpretation of the substitution of the old by the new, but that a deeper interpretation of the concept requires us to take into account the joint effect of the three trajectories of (i) increasing productive efficiency, (ii) the emergence of completely new sectors; (iii) the increasing quality and differentiation of incumbent sectors. The long run development path of capitalist countries could not have occurred by means of just one of these trajectories alone. An economic system with a fixed number of sectors with homogeneous products in presence of growing productive efficiency would have collapsed if the bottleneck caused by the possibility to produce all demanded output with a falling proportion of the labour force had not been compensated by the emergence of completely new sectors and by the higher quality and differentiation of incumbent sectors. Yet these two compensating trajectories could have been created only by the surplus generated by the growing productive efficiency of incumbent sectors. (Moi ici: Claro que se o grosso do surplus gerado na economia portuguesa for para o Estado-cuco... estão a ver o filme)
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In this paper we showed the effect of different possible combinations of the three trajectories by focusing on two extreme cases, one without quality change and one with a pronounced degree of quality change. The results of our calculations show that the no quality change scenario could have produced a higher rate of growth of employment than the high quality scenario, but only at the cost of having persistently low wages, competencies and human capital in all sectors. (Moi ici: Num cenário de manutenção da qualidade-atributos, o aumento da eficiência seria a única via de melhoria. Nesse cenário, o aumento da produtividade só seria conseguido à custa do denominador... isto merece um postal... estou a ver o filme dos milhões a que o Estado português, ao longo de décadas, chamou investimento, mas nunca passou de estímulos a um mercado com procura saturada porque a oferta não se diferenciou o suficiente) We interpret these two scenarios as extreme cases defining a region of parameter space within which patterns of economic development similar to the observed ones could have occurred.
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Our results in this paperare compatible with mechanism of economic development in which increasing product quality and prices, higher competencies ad education levels, higher wages and income levels co-evolve to produce the pattern of capitalist economic development observed during the XXth century. (Moi ici: E que julgo ter sido abandonado ao apostar tudo na exportação, porque a velocidade de destruição promovida pelo factor 3 foi muito superior à velocidade de criação, por outro lado, políticos e académicos não percebem a criação de valor potencial, só conhecem preço e custo. Assim, tudo se conjugou para salvar o mais possível o status-quo, através da eficiência. É verdade que em alguns países esta aposta na exportação pode ter começado por uma simples imposição demográfica... ou por uma consequência natural de considerar a definição dos clientes-alvo uma variável e não um dado do problema)
In this context the concept of creative destruction does not systematically entail the substitution of old sectors by new ones but needs to include the effect of the emergence of new sectors and the increasing quality and differentiation of incumbent sectors. Both these two trajectories reduce the potentially destructive effect of growing productive efficiency and provide renewed avenues for creation. Thus, there is more creation than destruction, although various forms of destruction persist."
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O artigo é mesmo bom, tenho de voltar a ele.

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