Impacto da expansão do agronegócio sobre indicadores econômicos e sociais municipais: evidências para a última fronteira agrícola do Brasil

Abstract

The advance of agribusiness in the last two decades has made the Matopiba region highly competitive in grain production, especially soybeans. This region comprises 337 municipalities in the states of Maranhão, Tocantins, Piauí and Bahia. The expansion of agribusiness transformed Matopiba into one of the most important agricultural frontiers in Brazil. Given the scarcity of research in the literature on the economic and social effects resulting from the cultivation of agricultural commodities, this thesis aims to analyze the impact of the expansion of agribusiness on municipal revenues, expenses and local education indicators in Matopiba. The database used was extracted from the Municipal Agricultural Production (PAM), available in the IBGE automatic retrieval system (SIDRA); World Index; Central Bank of Brazil (BCB); Brazilian Finance (FINBRA); School Census and the Basic Education Assessment System (Saeb). In general, the period from 2007 to 2019 was considered for analysis of the results. To measure the local exposure of agribusiness, the interaction of the percentage of soy planted area per municipality in the region with the structural break in the international price of soy in 2012. The choice of this commodity is justified because it represents the most relevant agricultural product in agribusiness in Matopiba (and in Brazil). The Two-Way Fixed Effects (TWFE) method was used in continuous treatment. This procedure was considered as an alternative to correct possible endogeneity caused by unobservable factors in the municipalities, such as infrastructure characteristics, human capital endowments or implementation of policies that are correlated with the local variation in the percentage of soybean planted area. The central hypothesis raised was that the expansion of agribusiness would positively affect municipal revenues, increasing public spending and potentially influencing the supply (and quality) of public services. The main results showed that the expansion of soybean farming had a positive impact on municipal revenues and expenditures. The average effect of the treatment on total budget revenues and total expenses was R$3.11 and R$2.51, per capita, respectively. However, no statistically significant effects of the treatment were detected on the education variables (scholar supply, school performance rate and scores on the Prova Brasil). These results suggest that the development of agribusiness in Matopiba did not affect the structure of educational indicators of the local population.