Brazil’s Trade Liberalization and Growth: Has it Failed?

Abstract: Unfulfilled expectations about economic growth in Brazil has led many observers to question the ability of the new, open trade regime to put the economy back on an path of sustainable growth. Whereas the country’s growth record has been really poor, the evidence suggests that the underlying causes had nothing to do with trade. Quite the contrary. This paper shows that trade liberalization has given an important contribution to two of the main drivers of growth: productivity and investment in physical capital. It argues that these gains were not turned into growth due to an unfavorable macro and institutional environment. It also claims that Brazil could have enjoyed more gains from trade, had it pursued a more aggressive trade policy at home and abroad. The paper concludes by outlining the main issues of a pro- growth, trade policy agenda for the country.

Keywords: Brazil; Trade; Growth (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: F1 F2 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: Written 2004-12-09
Note: Type of Document - pdf; pages: 19
View list of references

Downloads: (external link)
http://129.3.20.41/eps/it/papers/0412/0412008.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in International Trade from EconWPA
Series data maintained by EconWPA ().