In the book “Em busca do desenvolvimento perdido: um projeto novo-desenvolvimentista para o Brasil” [Searching for lost development: a new-developmentalist project for Brazil], professor Luiz Carlos Bresser-Pereira diagnoses Brazil’s fundamental problems based on the developing economic theory of new-developmentalism, which seeks to identify new historical facts that led the country’s economy to near stagnation for almost 40 years. The book has just been launched by FGV Press.

Bresser explains the two historical approaches to organize capitalism: developmentalism and economic liberalism, criticizing economic liberalism and the economic, political and intellectual elites in Brazil, as well as economic and foreign exchange populism, among several other issues related to the economy.

At the same time, the book also weaves concrete proposals on a macroeconomic policy, from the two basic accounts (fiscal and foreign exchange) and the five macroeconomic prices (interest rate, foreign exchange rate, wage rate, inflation rate and profit rate). Bresser also defends the industrial policy and the increasingly sophisticated goods and services export policy.

According to the author, “we need a theory that explains the low investment rates, high interest rates and the disappearance of industry, which set the country’s development one step backwards every year, compared to the rest of the world”.

The book will be launched in Sao Paulo, with a debate between the author and visiting professors André Roncaglia de Carvalho (Unifesp) and Samuel Pessôa (FGV’s Brazilian Institute of Economics – IBRE). Date and venue to be confirmed.