Brazil in the Global Crisis: Still a Rising Economic Superpower?

In the past decade, Brazil’s role in the world economy has changed in important ways; today, the country occupies key niches in global energy, agriculture, service and some high-technology markets. Brazil could play an important role in helping the global economy recover. However, Latin America’s largest nation still struggles with endemic inequality issues and deep-seated ambivalence toward global economic integration.

On July 13, the Latin America Initiative at Brookings hosted a discussion on the recently released book, Brazil as an Economic Superpower? Understanding Brazil’s Changing Role in the Global Economy (Brookings Institution Press, 2009), edited by Brookings Political Economy Fellow Leonardo Martinez-Diaz and Lael Brainard, former vice president and director of Global Economy and Development at Brookings. Panelists—including Martinez-Diaz, Jose Guilherme Reis of the World Bank and Paulo Vieira da Cunha, former director of International Affairs at the Central Bank of Brazil—discussed the impact of the global financial crisis on Brazil’s economy and how the country’s economic prospects might be affected by the slump in global demand and the changes in the international financial system.

Mauricio Cárdenas, senior fellow and director of the Latin America Initiative at Brookings, provided introductory remarks and moderated the panel discussion. After the program, panelists took audience questions.