Considerando a função !$ f(x)=(x^2-1)\cdot (x-3) !$, assinale V (verdadeiro) ou F (falso):

Item 1 - a equação !$ f'(x)=0 !$ tem no mínimo duas raízes reais no intervalo [-3,3];

A year later, the American economist, Hollis Chenery, was invited to Santiago to give the ECLA Lectures. His main concern was to stimulate interest in input-output analysis and linear programming for investment planning in developing countries. But he also made a spirited plea for structuralism:

“A central problem of development policy is the adequacy of free market forces in allocating investment resources.... The traditional view of economic policy in Western countries is derived from the classical theory of competitive equilibrium.... The main policy implication of this model is that, under static conditions of perfect competition, market forces will tend to bring about the best of a country’s resources.”

He pointed out that the Keynesian revolution, while successfully challenging classical theory in relation to short-term fluctuations in income and employment, had left its conclusions on longer-term resource allocation virtually unaffected. He identified departures from competition, dynamic causes and equity considerations as the ‘three kinds of defect in the free price-mechanism as an instrument for achieving the maximum social welfare and listed, under the first heading, such obstacles as inadequate information, restrictions on entry into occupations and limited access to capital.

“Theses factors combine to produce a rigid market structure, prevalent monopoly positions, immobile labor and capital, and consequently great inequalities in the returns to labor and capital in different uses... Serious structural disequilibrium in the use of labor, natural resources or foreign exchange represents one of the situations justifying state intervention in investment decisions.”

According to the text, Hollis Chenery

Item 1 - questioned the adequacy of free market forces in allocating investment resources.

Interest in the subject reached its climax with a monster conference on ‘Inflation and Growth in Latin America’ held in Rio de Janeiro in January 1963.

The structuralist theory of inflation did not emerge unscathed from the intensive discussion. Arthur Lewis, in his summing up, stressed the need to distinguish between the original cause and the spiral mechanism. The structuralist argument about supply inelasticity related entirely to the former, but in this respect there was no difference between Chile and (say) India. Why then has inflation been so much more of a problem in Chile? ‘The difference is that Chile is in the grip of the spiral process to a much greater degree than India.’ Another participant, T.E. Davis, spelled this out. Inflation in Chile has been a ‘conscious policy that constitutes a common second best’ for powerful interest groups; conservatives that have the power to block any attempts to reduce real wages; and large private firms that have sufficient power to insist that bank credit to the private sector expands pari passu with that to government. ‘Stabilization programs are politically feasible only when it appears to these groups that inflation might conceivably “get out of hand”; but opposition reappears when the rate of inflation has been reduced to what historically seem to constitute “safe” levels’.

If this was the crux of the problem of inflation in Latin America, it had little if anything to do with all the arguments about inelastic supply, immobility of resources and the other alleged defects of the price mechanism. The problem of excess income claims by organized sectional interests had, after all, long been recognized as one form of ‘cost push’, although not always, it must be admitted, given its due by hard-line monetarists.

Oddly enough, the same conclusion was already implicit in the very first statement of the structuralist theory of inflation, by Noyola. While he attributed inflation in Chile and Mexico fundamentally to structural factors – chiefly instability of export earnings and capacity to import in Chile and inelastic supply of food due to earlier land reform and government agricultural policies in Mexico – he explained the much more severe inflation in Chile by the fact that the ‘propagating mechanism’ was much weaker in Mexico because its huge labor surplus in agriculture depressed real wages and weakened the trade unions. It was the strong organization in Chile of the major social groups with their competing income claims, in other words the ‘propagating mechanism’ rather than the initiating ‘structural factors’, that accounted for Chile’s much more serious inflation problem.

The structuralist theory of inflation was criticized at the 1963 Rio de Janeiro conference. According to the text, the chief criticisms leveled against it were:

Item 1 - The blame on land reform for the inelasticity of the food supply in Mexico runs contrary to that theory’s arguments.

The Origins of Structuralism

H.W. Arndt. Modern Political Economy and Latin America. Eds. Jeffry Frieden,
Manuel Pastor Jr., and Michael Tomz. Westview Press, 2000: 5-9.

Introduction

In his recent book on economic development, I.M.D. Little distinguishes two broad categories of development economics. He calls them ‘neoclassical economics’ and ‘structuralism’.

“The structuralist sees the world as inflexible. Change is inhibited by obstacles, bottlenecks and constraints. People find it hard to move or adapt, and resources tend to be stuck. In economic terms, the supply of most things is inelastic. Such general inflexibility was thought to apply particularly to LDC’s.... Entrepreneurs were lacking; and communications were poor.... This alleged inflexibility was married to the evident fact that the production structure of developing countries was very different from that of developed countries. To achieve development, it had to be changed rapidly.... The structuralist view of the world provides a reason for distrusting the price mechanism and for trying to bring about change in other ways. If supplies and demands are very inelastic large price changes are needed to achieve small quantitative adjustments. Large price changes are disturbing, both directly and also because they result in changes in income distribution.... If the losers are powerful, they may... be able to resist the change through organized industrial or political action... Structuralism primarily seeks to provide a reason for managing change by administrative action.”

The purpose of this article is to explore further the origins of structuralism, both in the broader sense and the more specific context of Latin American structuralist theories of inflation, and the links between them.

According to the Little quotation,

Item 3 - income distribution concerns are at the heart of the price mechanism failures

Considere um modelo de Agente-Principal em que o último contrata um vendedor para seu produto. Se o vendedor esforçar-se muito, a receita das vendas será R$ 100, com probabilidade 0,8; R$ 50, com probabilidade 0,2; e a utilidade do vendedor será !$ \sqrt{w}-4 !$. Caso o vendedor se esforce pouco, a receita de vendas será R$ 100, com probabilidade 0,4; R$ 50, com probabilidade 0,6; e a utilidade do vendedor será !$ \sqrt{w} !$ (w é o salário). O vendedor sempre pode ter a utilidade !$ u_0=1 !$ se for trabalhar numa outra profissão que não seja a de vendas. O Principal preocupa-se em maximizar seu lucro esperado, dado pela receita de vendas menos o custo. Assuma que o Principal não consiga observar o nível de esforço do vendedor, mas apenas as vendas. É correto afirmar:

Item 1 - Se o Principal quiser induzir o vendedor a esforçar-se mais e obter lucro máximo, os salários correspondentes aos dois resultados de venda serão estritamente positivos.

A respeito da teoria da utilidade esperada, identifique a afirmativa:

Item 3 - A composição de uma carteira de ativos de um indivíduo avesso ao risco pode conter ativos financeiros de retornos incertos

The classical and neoclassical thesis according to which, in a perfectly competitive economy and in the absence of externalities, market forces operating through the price mechanism assure an optimum allocation of resources, statically and dynamically, were open to attack at three points. First, prices may give the wrong signals because they are distorted by monopoly or other influences. Secondly, labor and other factors of production may respond to price signals inadequately or even perversely. Thirdly, although ready to respond appropriately to price signals, factors of production may be immobile, unable to move quickly if at all. Lets us call them the ‘signaling’, ‘response’ and ‘mobility’ components of the mechanism.

According to the text,

Item 1 - structuralism concedes that market forces might lead to optimum allocation of resources provided only that externalities are absent and that perfectly competitive markets prevail.