Diferenças entre as exportações do Nordeste e do Sudeste do Brasil para a União Europeia: uma análise de similaridade, variedade e qualidade

Abstract

This work aims to analyze how the exports of Brazil’s Southeast and Northeast differ. As the former has relative capital abundance, we expect, according to Heckscher-Ohlin Model, that it presents capital-intensive exports, and the latter, relatively abundant in labor, labor-intensive exports. This conclusion is contradicted by more recent trade theories, which predict the overlapping of export bundles from the two regions, each differing in variety and/or quality of the exported products. These hypotheses’ empirical evaluation is done through the similarity index, proposed by Finger and Kreinin (1979), and the variety and quality indexes, proposed by Feenstra et al. (1999), with export data to the European Union from the Ministry of Development, Industry and Foreign Trade (MDIC). The results show that the similarity between the two regions’ exports is significant, and that Southeast’s products are superior in quality and variedy. However, in the industries where there is greater exported value by both regions, foods and beverages and base metals, each region especializes in different quality levels. In the former, the exports have greater quality in the Southeast region. In the latter, there is greater quality in Northeastern products.