A crise econômica do governo Dilma Rousseff: as interpretações ortodoxa, novo e social-desenvolvimentista

Abstract

When assuming the presidency of Brazil, Dilma Rousseff had solid macroeconomic indicators, despite the recent effects of the 2008 international financial crisis. In 2011, the new government sought to promote short-term economic growth through the Plano Brasil Maior, which aimed to promote the sector industrial sector as the new driver of economic growth. Additionally, the government made a series of changes to the fiscal, monetary and exchange rate policy in force until then. However, economic activity slowed down in the following years and in 2015 and 2016 the Brazilian economy officially entered recession. In view of the above, this work sought to analyze the

economic crisis of the Dilma Rousseff government according to orthodox, new- developmentalism and social-developmentalism perspectives. In response, it was

concluded that: 1) for the orthodox perspective, incentives for the industrial sector are not the appropriate response to the loss of dynamism in the Brazilian economy; the slowdown in economic activity from 2011 to 2014 is explained by increased government intervention in the economy; fiscal policy was expansionary, aimed at sectors that did not show the expected growth; e) the 2015 fiscal adjustment does not

explain the deepening of the crisis in the 2015-2016 biennium. 2) for the new- developmentalist perspective, the economic policy of the Dilma Rousseff government

had little adherence to what the new-developmentalist agenda preaches, the exchange rate was not devalued to the level necessary to recover the competitiveness of the national industrial sector; The tax relief program, in addition to not encouraging private investment, reduced the government's revenue capacity, leading to the generation of primary deficits, increasing public debt and the 2015 fiscal adjustment contributed to the economic recession of 2015 and 2016. For the perspective new-developmentalism the emphasis of economic policy on promoting the industrial sector and exports does not allow us to affirm that the Dilma government followed the social-developmentalist agenda; the failure of industrial policy was not due to “excessive interventionism”, but due to the focus on supply-side policies and tax relief; The 2015 fiscal adjustment contributed to the worsening of the crisis, transforming it into an economic recession.