Financialization in the behavior of subsidiaries of industrial multinationals in Brazil (2003-2019)

This paper aims to analyze the behavior of a group of industrial multinational subsidiaries located in Brazil in the period 2003-2019. In this context, their surplus increased substantially because of the rise in commodity prices. For this reason, we intend to analyze the destination of the surplus towards non-productive uses. The methodology used incorporated accounting data that were processed to construct useful variables within the disciplinary framework of political economy and economics for economic development. Through this, it was possible to measure the capital flight and financial investments of the selected companies. This paper ties in with the debate on financialization, global productive changes and the forms these phenomena take in developing countries. Despite the surplus increase, the selected firms lost productive density because they promoted non-productive uses, in a general context of the Brazilian characterized financialization and deindustrialization.