BRAZIL: TRAPPED IN THE MIDDLE LEVEL OF DEVELOPMENT

Abstract

In the XXI century Brazil has become one of the world leaders and, thanks to the reforms of the economy and society, made the transition from an authoritarian regime to establishing democracy. It is an event of historical importance for the global economy, the South American continent, the BRICS countries, as well as a lesson and experience for the transformation of other countries with a medium level of development. The success of the previous stage has revealed new challenges in the country. After the presidential elections of 2014, the painful loss of the «domestic» World Cup and corruption scandals of 2015, the country was pulled into the recession that threatens the long-term development goals.The future of Brazil is the fate of the most important economic experiment, going on before our eyes. We need to understand the reason for this turn of events and what the prospects are. What happened? There are three options: a natural for a market economy decline in growth rates; errors of economic policy, or a case when thesesame factors are manifestations of «middle-level development trap». The authors intend to show that this is a combination of all three options.