A aplicação de fundos compulsórios pelo BNDES na formação da estrutura setorial da indústria brasileira: 1952 a 1989

Abstract

Different domestic patterns of long-term financial systems in capitalist economies establish differents limits and conditions to economic growth processes, showing differences in terms of selection criteria, operational executions and incentives offered to make them possible. The pattern of investment financing established by new industrialized countries was based on credit markets, usually with an important participation of the State, using compulsory sources of funds, because they were not able to wait for a gradual development of the capital market. In the Brazilian case, public financial agencies are in charge of industrial investment financing, using compulsory sources of funds, because the Financial Reforms of the 60's did not succeed in developpping long-term credits and capitalizations lines based on voluntary funds. So BNDES became the main long-term agency specialized in industrial investment. In this sense, this thesis analyses, as a case study of a long-term industrial financial patterns, based-on-credit system with an important participation of the State using, as the main source, compulsory funds, the role played by BNDES as, a part of the State and a financial agent. It shows that BNDES, as a part of the State, was an important instrument in an activeGovernment policy. It was an agent to stimulate structural changes and it was a powerful instrument in eliminating instituional and technical barriers for capital mobility. The process of sectors' selection was based on the policy goals determined by Development Plans and, in this way, BNDES has contributed to the formation of an industrial structure. As a financial agent, BNDES's actions were influenced by the context of a new industrialized countries' typical long-term financial system. The thesis analyzes BNDES's actions in the steel, petrochemical, paper ans cellulose and capital goods sectors. It conclude that Types of financial collaboration that have been implemented by BNDES, as a long-term credit instituion, have enlarged the limits od debt participation in the total assets of the firms and, in this way, made it possible for large domestic private firms to come into existence in sectors of high capital density with considerable scale effects. Finally, this thesis concludes that this enlargement of firm's debt limits is possible in economies that have neither a strong capital market nor sufficient previous financial acumulation by entrepreneurs, when there is a especialized long-term credit institution, using as sources compulsory funds, and for that reason, an institution under State control.