ABSTRACT
Near-universal acceptance of GDP growth as the preeminent policy objective has provoked frequent disapproval from critics believing that growth inadequately ‘identifies’ economic development. While the widespread publicity engendered by the depletion of Brazilian natural resources is a relatively recent phenomenon, a longer-standing criticism is that Brazil’s development strategy only benefitted a minority of the country’s population. The Amazonian development policy pursued by a succession of military administrations in the 1960s and 1970s had, as its core strategy, massive subsidies to large domestic investors and favorable terms for foreign investors. Despite a brief equalizing interval during the 1970s, the overall trajectory from 1960 to the mid 1990s is one of worsening income inequality. While there has been an inequality reduction since the late 1980s, it has been fairly modest, and Brazil’s income distribution in 1996 was significantly more unequal than during the 1960s. The chapter also presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book.
