This paper examines the effects of trade liberalization on productivity growth in Brazil. In contrast with the previous literature, we examine whether this relationship is driven by product or input market effects, by including both output and input tariffs in firm-level productivity regressions and allowing for imperfect competition in the product market. The results show that the reductions of input tariffs were more important to explain the productivity growth that took place during trade liberalization in Brazil. Moreover, we find that the reduction in input tariffs led to a rise in mark-ups, while the reduction in output tariffs did the opposite.

The paper analyzes a two period general equilibrium model with individual risk, aggregate uncertainty and moral hazard. There is a large number of households, each facing two individual states of nature in the second period. These states differ solely in the household's vector of initial endowments, which is strictly larger in the first state (good state) than in the second state (bad state). In the first period each household chooses a non-observable action. Higher levels of action give higher probability of the good state of nature to occur, but lower levels of utility. Households' utilities are assumed to be separable in action and the aggregate uncertainty is independent of the individual risk. Insurance is supplied by a collection of firms who behave strategically and maximize expected profits taking into account that each household's optimal choice of action is a function of the offered contract. The paper provides sufficient conditions for the existence of equilibrium and shows that the appropriate versions of both welfare theorems hold.