Brazil is the largest country in Latin America and also the biggest debtor-country in the third world. Although Brazil has abundant natural resources such as land, mineral resources and labor, its economic performance has been relatively poor.
In fact, looking back at its economic development history, we can identify serious policy mistakes. It adopted a nonorthodox theory (sometimes called “structural”) to take the place of traditional international trade theory which has the principle of international division of labour. Due to the influence of the structural theory, Brazil regarded the only way to be independent from the developed industrial countries was to establish a self-supporting economic system of its own.
However, Brazil didn’t have any comparative advantages in which to develop the capital and technology-intensive industries. Therefore, many problems occurred in Brazil, such as strong inflation, high external debt and inequality in income distribution.
This study is an attempt to analyze the economic development in Brazil since its independence (1822). It contains seven chapters, with the introduction in chapter 1 and the conclusion in chapter 7 Chapter 2 discusses and evaluates the early industrial developing years (1822-1945). In chapter 3 there is a scrutiny of its industrialization drive since post World War II (1946-1963). We also analyze Brazil’s foreign exchange policy and how to stimulate industrialization. We are also interested in the changes in the Brazilian industrial structure and the issues of bottlenecks in the economy. Chapter 4 briefly examines the reasons for alternations in stagnation and boom in the economy from 1964 to 1973. Chapter 5 analyzes the impacts and consequences of the twin oil crises (1973 and 1979). We also deeply analyze Brazil’s dilemmas in the early 1980s. Chapter 6 introduces Brazil’s economic development and strategies after 1983 and we make some economic forecasts.
