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Volume	Vol 17, nº 2, Abr-Jun - 1997
Author	Ruben D. Almonacid e Gabriel A. Scrimini
Section	Artigos
Paper	Preços relativos e competitividade externa
Summary	In the last few years, Brazil has seen its trade Balance deteriorate significantly. Although some people defended these results as a necessary ingredient of the stabili-zation and growth process now in course, the fact that a similar experience, lived by Mexico, ended up in a severe debt crisis in December, 1994, represents a serious warning. Trying to differentiate the two cases some people have argued that the Mexican diffi-culties originated in an incorrect political transition. On the other hand, this paper sug-gests that in both cases, there is a variable indicative of economic incentives, namely “the relative price of home and tradable goods”, that could explain the behavior of the trade balance. Regressions estimated for the two countries document this conclusion.