Abstract

A semantic change has occurred in the scope of structural reforms’ term. This
article reviews Celso Furtado’s work, in particular, the ones related to this specific topic, and
compares it with the current literature. It appears that structural reforms in the Furtadian
conception connoted base transformations and were guided by the developmentalism
school of thought. Nowadays, it is of general knowledge that, under the new-institutionalist
influence, “structural reforms” are associated with liberal policies for monitoring fiscal
consolidations, without consensus as to the power of effectiveness. The effort to rescue and
understand the original conceptions of certain keywords in the economic development
literature, as well as the way in which their interpretations and practices modify over
time, is shown to be of paramount importance as the capitalist system struggle to find ways
of adapting itself to the current situation of developing economies.

JEL Classification: O2; O54; P11.