Coffee price fluctuations and output: a historical and empirical analysis for the state of Espírito Santo

Abstract

Historically, coffee has played a relevant role in the economy of the state of Espírito Santo, Brazil. Thus, the main goal of this paper is to provide a historical and empirical analysis of this crop’s importance throughout the 20th century and part of the 21st century in that state. The results show that: i) coffee was instrumental for the development of local agriculture, as well as for the consolidation of the economic structure of Espírito Santo, especially during the 19th and 20th centuries; ii) over the last years, there has been a larger production of the variety conilon in comparison to arabica in that state; iii) an analysis of stationarity patterns of coffee price time series in Espírito Santo show that conilon prices may belong to the I(1) class, while arábica prices seem to belong to the I(2) class; iv) cointegration test results show that there is not a long-run balanced relationship between conilon prices and the industrial output of that state.