Chapter 1

Low Economic Growth and its Proximate Causes

Abstract

The main focus of this chapter is on ten stylized facts that characterize the Brazilian economy of the democratic regime installed in 1985. Such characteristics hinder the accumulation of physical and human capital as well as interfere with an increase in productivity, resulting in a low potential for economic growth. The ten stylized facts are: (1) steady growth of public current expense; (2) ever increasing tax burden; (3) low savings; (4) high interest rate; (5) infrastructure bottlenecks; (6) increase in minimum salary above the increase in labor productivity; (7) closure of economy to international trade; (8) judicial uncertainty and weak property rights protection; (9) proliferation ...

Get Inequality, Democracy, and Growth in Brazil now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.