ABSTRACT
The chapters in this volume covered many aspects of the socio-economic relations between energy and economic growth and development, as exemplified by the Brazilian and US experiences. The initial chapters focused on the effects of policy change on the emergence of the bio fuels sector in both Brazil and the United States. In their chapter Cavalcanti and Jalles compared the US and Brazilian experiences. They showed that although there was a sharp increase in oil import dependence of the United States, output growth volatility decreased over time, as well as the impact of oil price shocks to such volatility. And while inflation volatility has also been decreasing, oil price shocks are accounting for a larger fraction of this volatility. On the other hand, oil import dependence has dropped dramatically for Brazil and oil price shocks have little impact on the Brazilian economy.
