Julimar da Silva Bichara

Brazil After The Great Recession: Searching For A Coherent Developmental Strategy

Ever since the late 1990s, conventional economic wisdom has been challenged by the increasing instability of the financial markets and the emergence of new economic powers that have not been strictly following the so-called Washington Consensus, particularly China and India. In this context, the global financial crisis, which began in August 2007, and induced the “Great Recession” (GR), has substantially altered the dynamic process of the international economy. Governments of advanced and emerging countries have responded to the GR with massive fiscal and monetary stimulus, by rescuing financial and nonfi- nancial corporations and by reintroducing a more hands-on approach to deal with the economic problems (Griffith-Jones et al., 2010; Arestis et al., 2011). Brazil is not an exception. Alongside the countercyclical policies aimed at smoothing the negative impacts of the external environment, the central government has been trying to implement more active developmental policies.