Exchange rate as economic development device

ABSTRACT This article discusses the importance of the exchange rate in the economic development process. After a brief discussion about this issue, the paper presents a historical vision of the exchange policy adopted in Brazil from 1995 until now. This policy took part in the stabilization macroeconomic program implemented in the country since then. Thus, we are discussing the main effects of the economic exchange policy over the industrial sector, highlighting the fact that there are some empirical evidences about the deindustrialization process in Brazil nowadays. What could explain it is the behavior of the share of technological content of the products that compose the international trade of the country. Recently one can observe that there is an expressive growth in the share of the non-industrial products, which could characterize the deindustrialization process in the country.摘要 本文探讨了汇率在经济发展进程中的重要性。在对该议题进行简要论述后，本文梳理了巴西1995年至今所实施的汇率政策的历史脉络。该政策是该国自此之后推行的宏观经济稳定计划的组成部分。据此，本文着重探讨了汇率政策对工业部门的主要经济影响，并指出现今巴西存在去工业化进程的经验证据。能够解释这一现象的，是构成该国国际贸易的产品的技术含量占比的变化态势。近期可以观察到，非工业产品的占比出现了显著增长，这或可表征该国的去工业化进程。