Dados is one of the most widely-read social sciences journals in Latin America. Created in 1966, it publishes innovative works, originating from academic research, by Brazilian and foreign authors. Edited by IESP-UERJ, it aims to reconcile scientific rigor and academic excellence with an emphasis on public debate based on the analysis of substantive issues of society and politics.
Dados n. 18 Rio de Janeiro 1978
Abstract
Various studies concerning state-owned enterprises in the Brazilian economy point to the unplanned growth and diversification of the State 's entrepreneurial activity, supposedly the result of a more pragmatic approach to the formulation of economic policy rather than of a long-term orientation toward increasing state control of the economy. This paper contends that the absence of a strategy of state intervention in the production of goods and services is the cause of most of the distortions that are usually pointed out in connection with the socio-economic effects of the behavior of state-owned enterprises. To the extent that these enterprises adopt behavioral patterns similar to those of the private sector, the goals of self-expansion may conflict with those of socio-economic development. ln addition, if state-owned enterprises are compelled to prove efficient (as defined by private-sector criteria) that drive for efficiency will cause increasing diversification of the government's direct intervention in the production of goods and services, regardless of manifestations favoring a curb on the State's entrepreneurial activities. This aspect constitutes the basic contradiction in the current debate on the subject and is the source of most of the controversy surrounding the role of state-owned enterprises in the Brazilian economy's development model.
A Produção Pública na Economia Brasileira
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