Reestimating Brazil’s GDP growth from 1900 to 1980

Abstract

We present evidence of overestimation of Brazil’s GDP growth both by the Getulio Vargas Foundation from 1947 to 1980 and by Claudio Haddad from 1900 to 1947. The main reason is selection bias in favor of higher-growth goods-producing activities to the detriment of Keywordsslower-growing service activities. We develop and apply methods to include such services in the real output series. As a result, we suggest haircuts that reduce the GDP yearly growth rate from 7.4% to 6.2% in the 1947-1980 period and from 4.4% to 4.0% in the 1900-1947 period. For the whole 1900-1980 period, our suggested haircuts reduce the GDP yearly growth rate from 5.7% to 4.9%. JEL Codes N16, O11, O47, O54