ABSTRACT
Brazil's overall economic retardation can also not be attributed to some of the conditions characteristic of an enclave "export economy" in which expanding exports have only limited effects on aggregate development. The nineteenth-century Brazilian experience offers an opportunity to focus on the causes of overall retardation in conditions which appear to have been relatively favourable for development. This chapter analyses the main features of the Brazilian economy and its development in the nineteenth century. It also analyses the conditions underlying the slow growth of per capita income for the country as a whole before 1900. The main reason for the slow growth of per capita output in Brazil before 1900 undoubtedly lay in the conditions of the domestic agricultural sector, which employed a large portion of the country's labour force. A part of the labour force in the domestic agricultural sector was engaged in farming on the abundant lands in the interior of Brazil.
