To control the transmission of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), Brazilian local governments have adopted partial lockdown measures in economic sectors, thereby triggering transmission shocks along input–output supply chains. The national internal market and territorial disparities favor the formation of subnational production networks within borders, thus increasing the potential effects of lockdown measures on regional integration production networks. Therefore, this study makes hypothetical simulations of COVID-19 mitigation policy decisions to understand the regional impacts on integration in supply chains, considering both domestic and global value chains. The generalized hypothetical extraction method is applied to a Brazilian interregional input–output model with 68 industries and 27 regions, imputing partial removals on intermediate consumption and final demand. The results suggest that richer subnational areas, mainly São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, are proportionally more impacted by COVID-19 trade shocks. However, the poorer peripheries are doubly affected, either by the foreign shock, which would damage their economic structure, or by the retraction of the subnational demand from core states. The findings highlight that economic shocks are spatially distributed through different industrial structures, thus stressing the need to avoid ‘one size fits all’ regional policies to mitigate the potential negative effects on exposed regions.

Despite the significant advances of Brazilian agriculture, transportation and storage costs still constitute the main barriers to the Brazilian agribusiness. The aim of this article is to analyze the effect of segregation of maize and soybeans in the Brazilian transport and storage logistics, especially genetically modified grains. In the context of the guidelines of the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety (CPB) as well as of the competitiveness in the international market, we develop a spatial equilibrium model in the form of a mixed complementarity problem. The competitiveness of Brazilian maize and soybeans on the international market is compromised by the inefficient logistics and slow responses to the demands of the CPB. The contribution of the paper is to evaluate how regulatory issues of a segment, in this case biotechnology, may interfere with logistic infrastructure projects.

This paper analyzes the relative content of CO₂ emissions embedded in regional supply chains in four different countries in Latin America: Brazil, Chile, Colombia, and Mexico. We estimate both the trade in value-added (TiVA) and the CO₂ content embedded in interregional and foreign exports, mapping the relative intensity of CO₂ emission levels on value chains. For that, we applied an inter-regional input-output model to determine the interplay between the CO₂ emission embedded in goods of resource-based industries and their linkages with other economic industries, revealing a map of CO₂ emissions on trade in value-added trade from a subnational dimension. The main result reveals an interregional dependence, indicating a higher level of embedded CO₂ on value-added in each regional economy for resource-based industries, usually intense in CO₂ emissions. This finding has considerable implications for the sustainable development goals of these subnational areas, as the spatial concentration of production leads to an unbalanced regional capacity for promoting reductions in CO₂ emissions along with value chains.

This study analyzes the impacts of reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions on the meat and dairy industries. To achieve this goal, the Global Trade Analysis Project (GTAP) database was used in a Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) setting, which allows for the inclusion of carbon taxes and the definition of four alternative environmental policies scenarios using both Global Warming Potential (GWP) and Global Temperature Potential (GTP) as GHG emissions measures. All scenarios analyze the main effects of carbon-based tax economic instruments on the industry and national production, trade, and emissions, comparing the results for different measures of GHG, GWP, and GTP from the Greenhouse Gas Emissions Estimation System (SEEG) sectoral Brazilian emissions database. In contrast with other industries, relatively lower taxes on the meat and dairy industries seem to be the most adequate in terms of cost distribution in the Brazilian economic structure when only the GWP measure is considered. Urban activities and less-methane-intensive industries benefit from climate change policies designed using GWP-based rather than GTP-based carbon taxes. The article also highlights the importance of a gradual introduction of carbon taxes, allowing the most vulnerable industries a transition moment to adopt clean technologies and/or redirect economic activity to less-GHG-emitting segments.

Cigarette consumption is a worldwide epidemic and its reduction is one of the major public health concerns. In Brazil, although there is a wide literature on smoking cessation it is restricted to experimental studies. Based on data from the 2013 National Health Survey (PNS), this study uses the survival methodology and use population data and consumer’s profile to investigate which characteristics will affect smoking cessation hazard. The results showed that the people who are less likely to quit smoking are older, single men, with low income and fewer education years. They also do not practice physical exercise. The findings of cigarette cessation hazard to Brazilian population are similar of experimental studies with smokers and ex-smokers in country. Therefore, in order to decrease public health spending, Brazilian health policies regarding tobacco cessation could focus on those groups who will likely smoke for a long time.