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Who Is the Best Soccer Player There Ever THE GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF BUSINESS AND PUBLIC MANAGEMENT INSTITUTE OF BRAZILIAN BUSINESS AND PUBLIC MANAGEMENT ISSUES FINAL PAPER FOR THE 11TH. MINERVA PROGRAM ECONOMIC INTEGRATION OF MERCOSUR THE CASE OF BRAZIL AND ARGENTINA ADVISOR: PROFESSOR THOMAS ANDREW O’KEEFE VINÍCIUS TEIXEIRA SUCENA Washington, DC 2000 My gratitude To my wife. To Prof. Thomas Andrew O’Keefe, Ph.D. To Prof. James Ferrer, Jr., Ph.D. and the staff of IBI. ii Summary SECTION Page Introduction ..................................................................................................................... 1 1. The Global Economic Context................................................................................... 5 2. The Economic Context of South America.........................................................….... 10 3. Economic Integration – Conceptual Frame Work...................................................... 17 3.1 Forms of Economic Integration............................................................... 18 3.1.1 A Free Trade Area.......................................................................... 18 3.1.2 A Customs Union........................................................................... 19 3.1.3 A Common Market......................................................................... 19 3.1.4 Economic Union............................................................................. 20 3.1.5 Total Economic Integration............................................................ 20 3.2 Strategies................................................................................................. 21 3.2.1 Short Term...................................................................................... 21 3.2.2 Medium Term................................................................................. 21 3.2.3 Long Term...................................................................................... 22 3.3 Consequences of Integration................................................................... 22 3.3.1 Trade creation and Trade diversion................................................ 22 3.3.2 Economies of scale......................................................................... 22 3.3.3 Competition.................................................................................... 22 3.3.4 Induced Investments....................................................................... 23 4. Early Attempts at Integration in Latin America......................................................... 24 4.1 The ALALC...................................................................................................... 26 iii 4.2 The ALADI....................................................................................................... 31 5. Argentina and Brazil.................................................................................................. 31 6. The creation an development of MERCOSUR.......................................................... 38 7. Argentina, Brazil and the MERCOSUR after 1995................................................... 49 7.1 The resistance to the MERCOSUR.................................................................. 70 7.2 The devaluation of the Real and its effect on Argentina.................................. 72 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………….. 77 Bibliography……………………………………………………………………………... 83 iv Index of Graphics, tables and figures Page Table 1 International Interest rates................................................................ 11 Table 2 Brazil’s External Debt...................................................................... 12 Graphic 1 Brazil’s External Debt...................................................................... 13 Table 3 Rate of Growth of GDP per capita................................................... 14 Table 4 Flow of capital.................................................................................. 15 Table 5 Trade intra and extra ALALC.......................................................... 28 Table 6 Trade intra and extra ALADI........................................................... 29 Figure 1 Map of Argentina............................................................................. 33 Figure 2 Map of Brazil................................................................................... 34 Figure 3 MERCOSUR.................................................................................... 41 Table 7 Members of MERCOSUR (selected statistics)................................ 42 Graphic 2 GDP of MERCOSUR....................................................................... 43 Graphic 3 Population of MERCOSUR............................................................. 43 Table 8 Lifting off the tariffs........................................................................ 45 Table 9 Trade intra and extra MERCOSUR................................................. 46 Table 10 Bilateral Trade – Argentine exports................................................. 48 Table 10b Bilateral Trade – Brazilian exports.................................................. 48 Graphic 4 Area of MECOSUR......................................................................... 52 Graphic 5 Comparison with rest of South America.......................................... 52 Table 11 Argentinean exports to Brazil, MERCOSUR and Total.................. 53 Table 12 Argentinean imports from Brazil, MERCOSUR and Total............. 54 Graphic 7 Argentinean imports from Brazil, MERCOSUR and Total............. 54 v Table 13 Brazilian exports to Argentina, MERCOSUR and Total................. 55 Graphic 8 Brazilian exports to Argentina, MERCOSUR and Total................. 55 Table 14 Brazilian imports from Argentina, MERCOSUR and Total............ 56 Graphic 9 Brazilian imports from Argentina, MERCOSUR and Total............ 56 Table 15 Brazilian Trade to Argentina............................................................ 57 Graphic 10 Brazilian Trade to Argentina............................................................ 57 Graphic 11 The growth of the bilateral trade...................................................... 58 Graphic 12 Trade intra and extra MERCOSUR................................................. 59 Graphic 13 MERCOSUR Members – Trade balances........................................ 61 Table 16 Argentinean exports-total and to Brazil........................................... 64 Graphic 14 Argentinean exports-total and to Brazil........................................... 64 Graphic 15 Brazilian balance in the intra MERCOSUR trade............................ 65 Table 17 Composition of Brazilian exports.................................................... 66 Graphic 16 Composition of Brazilian exports to Argentina............................... 67 Graphic 16b Composition of Brazilian exports to Argentina............................... 68 Graphic 17 Improvement in industrialization..................................................... 69 Graphic 18 Trade Argentina x Brazil in 1999..................................................... 76 Table 18 Argentina and Brazil – then and now............................................... 79 Graphic 19 Dynamic effects of trade.................................................................. 79 vi INTRODUCTION Who is the best soccer player there ever was? The answer to that question depends a great deal on whether you live south or north of the Rio de la Plata, or if you speak Spanish or Portuguese. As a matter of fact, it depends really if you are Argentinean (and you would say he was Diego Armando Maradona, ‘El Pibe de Oro’) or Brazilian (then you would say that he certainly was Edson Arantes do Nascimento, ‘The King Pelé’). Rivalry between Brazil and Argentina is not new and is not restricted to soccer. Even though they are countries that share a lot of common history, they are also very diverse, starting with colonization, continuing through how they achieved their Independence from the Colonizing Metropolis, and culminating in the process of industrialization they each experienced in the 20th century. Argentineans have, throughout their history considered themselves the most civilized country in South America, praising their European ascendancy, their high rate of literacy and the enormous number of bookstores, libraries and cafes, even though these are located mostly in Buenos Aires and Córdoba. Brazilians, on the other hand, have always bragged about their openness, their ability and enjoyment for sports and music and their informal way of seeing life and passing through it, considering their “hermanos” to the south stiff and snobbish. Of course all these generalizations are unfair and one cannot fairly describe nearly 40 million Argentineans and 165 million Brazilians in a sentence or two. But it is also as clear as water that the two major players in the MERCOSUR game don’t get along very well. Argentina and Brazil cannot be overlooked when one wants to know about South America. The land area they both cover is impressive and their boundaries are nearly endless, with huge populations (especially Brazil’s) and their Gross National Product way above the others, making all of their neighbors somewhat spectators in the process of Southern Cone Development. The main objective of this paper is to analyze the reasons that led Brazil and Argentina to integrate, their respective economic backgrounds prior to the creation of the MERCOSUR (which is the acronym for Common
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