This study examines the process of railway modernization in Minas Gerais. It uses theoretical classification that combines external variables, especially the expansion of the capital into the periphery, with internal variables, above all the hegemony of the raw material exporting model, marked...

This paper analyzes a set of infrastructure programs (Sewer, Housing, Transports, Communications and Energy) in the Northeast region of Brazil, announced by the federal government in the scope of the PAC (Plano de Aceleração do Crescimento). We use an interregional computable general...

During 19th century and the beginning of the following century Minas Gerais was the most important sugarcane plantation area in Brazil. In the 1830's there were presumably 4.150 productive unities working with sugarcane transformation in Minas Gerais. Probably, the sum of all sugar mills in the...

The aim of this paper is to present a database that contains a new way to relate quantitative and qualitative information. The authors intend to make it available for economic history researchers. It is a database about the "provincial inquiries", an important source of information on economic...

Between 1750 and 1880, Minas Gerais developed an economy predominantly non-exporting as well as relatively independent of external markets of other Brazilian regions and of foreign markets. Due to such unique historical evolution, contemporaries had to develop specific understanding and ways of...

There is considerable evidence to demonstrate that the industrial localization in developing countries shows high level of spatial concentration, and the industrial decentralization is quite restricted to few isolated regions. The aim of this paper is to analyze the Brazilian case to identify...

There is a great interest in free trade areas (FTA) in Brazil, predominantly in the context of a proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). In addition, a free trade area between MERCOSUR (the customs union involving Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, and Paraguay) and the European Union has also...

The Brazilian federal government has recently set out plans encompassing detailed public expenditure programs and targets on infra-structure investment (PAC, Programa de Aceleração do Crescimento). We investigate the sectoral, regional and national economic consequences of the PAC in Minas...

Sugarcane plantations industry, the oldest and more important activity of rural transformation in Brazil, experienced profound metamorphosis in twentieth century. This process began in the last quarter of the previous century, and resulted in the progressive establishment of an essentially new...