An account of new developmentalism and its structuralist macroeconomics

Vol. 31 No. 3 (2011)

Jul-Sep / 2011
Published July 1, 2011
PDF-English
PDF-English

How to Cite

Bresser-Pereira, Luiz Carlos. 2011. “An Account of New Developmentalism and Its Structuralist Macroeconomics”. Brazilian Journal of Political Economy 31 (3):493-502. https://centrodeeconomiapolitica.org.br/repojs/index.php/journal/article/view/417.

An account of new developmentalism and its structuralist macroeconomics

Luiz Carlos Bresser-Pereira
Emeritus professor of Getulio Vargas Foundation.
Brazilian Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 31 No. 3 (2011), Jul-Sep / 2011, Pages 493-502

Abstract

This is a personal account of the identification and definition of “new developmentalism” – a national development strategy alternative to the Washington consensus –, and of a “structuralist development macroeconomics”: the sum of concepts and models that justifies theoretically that strategy. It is personal account of a collective work involving Keynesian, institutionalist and structuralist economists in Brazil. It is Keynesian because it emphasizes the demand side or the investment opportunities’ side of economic growth. It is structuralist because it defines economic development as a structural change from low to high value added per capita industries and because it is based on two structural tendencies that limit investment opportunities: the tendency of wages to grow below productivity and the tendency to the cyclical overvaluation of the exchange rate.

JEL Classification: B22; B31.


Keywords: macroeconomics structuralism developmentalism history of economic thought