Introduction

Brazil had one of the highest growth rates in the world between 1930 and 1980. The share of manufacturing in GDP nearly doubled in one of the largest late industrialisation processes in the twentieth century.

Industrialisation happened inside the model of developing domestic markets and was boosted with import substitution policies. In recent decades, however, Brazilian industry has lost dynamism due to the debt crisis of the 1980s, followed by the implementation of neoliberal policies in the 1990s. Despite the return of industrial policy in the Workers’ Party administrations since 2002, the country is still losing ground in manufacturing development.

This chapter offers a brief historical overview of Brazilian industrialisation, based on the understanding that industrialisation should be embedded in an institutional environment propitious to technological catch up. Industrial policies have to be part of a broader strategy, whose internal coherence is essential to achieve the expected results. We believe that the ongoing deindustrialisation in Brazil is associated with the dismantling of the institutional apparatus that promoted industrial orientation and its replacement by another, oriented primarily towards short-term macroeconomic stabilisation.

Available: https://www.econbiz.de/Record/economic-crisis-and-industrial-policies-policy-options-for-a-return-to-growth-in-russia-traub-merz-rudolf/10011738205