Economic Development: A Theoretical Review and the Brazilian Experience

For a long time, the idea of developmentalism was based on the thesis that industrialisation was the way to overcome poverty and underdevelopment. However, a country would not be able to industrialise through market impulses alone, and state intervention was necessary. With this in mind, the book seeks to identify the process of economic development used by Brazil from the 1930s to the most recent phase, reviewing theoretically and chronologically how this experience took place. Notes are presented on the concept of economic development according to the views of the currents of thought in economic science, and these concepts are identified; the main projects carried out in Brazil to establish and consolidate national industry are briefly explained. The phase in which the crisis took hold in the Brazilian economy in the 1980s and early 1990s, the lack of a long-term economic project to resume the country's economic growth, and the beginning of the process of opening up the Brazilian economy are demonstrated. Finally, the failures of neoliberal policies and reforms to promote macroeconomic stabilisation and growth are exposed, resulting in the emergence of neo-developmentalism.