The Brazilian Burden: The recent economic crisis and remaining structural problems

The Brazilian economy experienced substantial economy growth during the Workers\u27 Party administration, starting in 2002. The growth model adopted in those years, founded on increasing consumption and access to consumer goods by low income households, seemed to have a solid basis, especially during the recovery after the Great Financial Crisis. Those bright years are now blurred by the worst economic crisis in Brazilian history. The current dissertation intends to shed light on the debate over the current period, linking it to the development theory, in which industrialization is the path for sustainable economic growth. We find that Brazil is on the opposite track and going backwards in the process of development, suffering from deindustrialization, a process reinforced by the Dutch disease. Beyond resulting in low economic growth, this path implies a fragile financial structure subjected to the classical constraints on the balance of payments