How to Heal the Brazilian Economy

June 16, 2021

The Brazilian economy has been suffering from a double disease in the last few decades: a combination of anemia in productivity increases and an obesity of the public sector. On the one hand, the mediocre performance of productivity in Brazil in recent decades has limited its GDP growth potential. On the other, the expansion of public spending has become increasingly incompatible with such limits on the potential expansion of GDP, particularly since the growing public spending has not achieved commensurate socioeconomic results.

Speakers
Otaviano Canuto
Senior Fellow
Senior Fellow at the Policy Center for the New South, Affiliate Professor at Mohammed VI Polytechnic University and Non-Resident Senior Fellow at Brookings Institute. Former Vice President and Executive Director at the World Bank, Executive Director at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and Vice President at the Inter-American Development Bank. ...

RELATED CONTENT

  • Authors
    Fadoua Ammari
    September 12, 2025
    The Atlantic Initiative, announced by King Mohammed VI in November 2023 to provide landlocked Sahelian countries with access to the Atlantic Ocean via Moroccan territory, promises to profoundly reshape the bilateral relationship between Rabat and Nouakchott. This research paper examines how this unprecedented project creates new strategic opportunities while raising shared challenges for Morocco and Mauritania. Diplomatically, the rapprochement around the Atlantic Initiative unfolds ...
  • September 11, 2025
    Ce travail apporte un éclairage critique sur l'alignement des dispositifs publics d'orientation des étudiants marocains à l'étranger avec les ambitions de développement du pays. Il interroge la capacité de ces mécanismes à transformer la mobilité étudiante d'une potentielle "fuite des cerveaux" en un véritable "gain de cerveaux". S'appuyant sur une étude de cas qualitative, nous avons mené une analyse de contenu systématique (cartographie) de 204 programmes promus par le ministère d ...
  • September 8, 2025
    In this episode, we explore how today’s trade regime shapes inequality through a Southern lens. The conversation sheds light on blind spots in mainstream debates, the resurgence of industrial policy in the North, and the tools Southern countries need to reclaim policy space within globa...
  • Authors
    September 4, 2025
    This policy brief analyzes the first 100 days in office of Chancellor Friedrich Merz, which have been marked by an assertive foreign policy, ambitious security reforms, and a shift toward economic pragmatism. Merz has sought to reestablish Germany as a ‘leading middle power’, emphasizing closer European coordination, renewed transatlantic engagement, and unwavering support for Ukraine. However, his approach to the Gaza conflict, characterized by alignment with U.S. positions and rel ...
  • Authors
    September 3, 2025
    Estimates based on last year’s U.S. imports, by Maia G. Crook (from JPMorgan) indicate that the average effective U.S. tariff rate is currently 16%, and is expected to rise to 20% by the end of 2025. This represents an increase from 13% mid-year and 2.3% in 2024 (Figure 1). Effective tariff rates are a measure of the degree of protection a tariff structure offers to the value added provided by each sector to a country’s final product, taking into account both the tax on final g ...
  • Authors
    Jorge Arbache
    September 2, 2025
    This Opinion was originally published in Project Syndicate However politically convenient narratives about the United States "abandoning" manufacturing may be, the reality is more complex and less gloomy than many assume. In fact, US manufacturing has not disappeared, but it did internationalize as American companies pursued higher-value opportunities at home. ...
  • Authors
    September 2, 2025
    This paper argues that the Middle East has become the crucible of twenty-first-century imperial politics, exposing the collapse of legal universality and the resurgence of coercive empire. Through the archetypes of Hammurabi and Nebuchadnezzar, it analyzes how states invoke law rhetorically while practicing domination through siege, spectacle, and exclusion.The United States, China, Türkiye, Israel, Iran, the European Union, and the Gulf monarchies all oscillate between Hammurabian ...
  • Authors
    August 29, 2025
    After 1994, everything was a priority, and our people were completely broken. But we made three fundamental choices that guide us to this day. One—we chose to stay together. Two—we chose to be accountable to ourselves. Three—we chose to think big. — His Excellency President Paul Kagame, 20th Commemoration of the Genocide against the Tutsi (April 7, 2014) Rwanda’s socio-economic progress since 1994 has been remarkable. Rwanda is rightly considered a showcase of the enduring ...