 Economics Ideas and Institutions in Historical Perspective: Cairú and Hamilton on Trade and FinanceWorking Paper Series, Department of Economics, University of Utah from University of Utah, Department of Economics Abstract: This paper deals with the role of economic ideas in institutional development. Conventional wisdom in Brazilian historiography suggests that, in part, the relative backwarderness of Brazil with respect to the United States was the result of the economic liberalism of its elites, represented by José da Silva Lisboa, the Viscount of Cairú. The paper argues that Cairús defense of an open economy, integrated to the world economy, in which agricultural production would prevail over the industrial interests, should be seen as a discourse for landowners and the mercantile class connected to the slave trade. It is also argued that, in contrast to Alexander Hamilton, Cairú and the Brazilian elites had a naive view of public finance that is central to understand the backwarderness of Brazilian financial markets. Political conservatism and a negative view of finance are seen as more relevant than liberalism in explaining the relative backwarderness of Brazil. Keywords: Cairú; Hamilton; brazil (search for similar items in EconPapers) Published in Esteban Perez and Matias Vernengo (eds.), Ideas, Policies and Economic Development in the Americas, New York: Routledge, 2007 There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it. Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:uta:papers:2005_08 Access Statistics for this paper More papers in Working Paper Series, Department of Economics, University of Utah from University of Utah, Department of Economics Contact information at EDIRC. |
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