Roots of Brazilian Relative Economic Backwardness

Roots of Brazil’s Relative Economic Backwardness explains Brazil’s development level in light of modern theories regarding economic growth and international economics. It focuses on both the proximate and fundamental causes of Brazil’s slow development, turning currently dominant hypotheses upside down.

To support its arguments, the book presents extensive statistical analysis of Brazilian long-term development, with some new series on per capita GDP, population ethnical composition, and human capital stock, among others. It is an important resource in the ongoing debate on the causes of Latin American underdeveloped economies.

• Argues that low human capital accumulation is the major source of Brazilian relative underdevelopment
• Considers class conflict as the major determinant of Brazil’s historically low human capital accumulation and underdevelopment
• Presents new statistical information about Brazilian early development

Alexandre Rands Barros is Ph.D. in Economics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, U.S.A., and was Senior Associate Member in St. Antony´s College in the University of Oxford in England at two non-continuous moments. He was a Professor of Economics at Federal University of Pernambuco in Recife-PE, Brazil. Currently he is president in a Brazilian private company, although he continues to work on academic research about Brazilian Development.