ABSTRACT

This chapter aims to analyze the effects of the great recession of 2008 on a group of developing countries, such as Argentina and Brazil, in the context of a new pattern of growth adopted in 2000. As a general framework of analysis, we will summarize the main features of the new pattern of international growth, beginning with the emergence of China. In this context, we will discuss the main strategies undertaken by developing countries. Of these three strategies, this analysis will focus on one of them. Following Medeiros (2010), we will refer provisionally to this strategy as “neo-Keynesian”, which in Latin America is represented by the cases of Brazil and Argentina. In this analytical framework, the term “neo-Keynesian” means a strategy that results in increased economic growth by an expanding domestic market, reducing poverty and increasing real wages. But at the same time, these improvements are achieved without substantive policies aimed at changing patterns of trade specialization as well as inducing a structural change.