South America’s troubled powerhouse

x Sponsored content on Research Live and in Impact magazine is editorially independent.
Find out more about advertising and sponsorship.

Brazil’s recent global economic success story started in 1985, when – inching its way towards national democracy – it became the subject of inflation-decreasing and land-redistribution programmes. This meant a variety of consumer goods started to become available to more and more groups of people, and this was seen as remarkable progress in what was once one of the most unequal societies in the world.

PEW Center research suggests that, in South America, the commodity price super-cycle that occurred in the late 1990s and continued well into the 2000s helped boost middle- and upper-middle income populations. Argentina and Chile, for example, went from being predominantly low-income countries around 2001, to being majority middle-income nations just 10 years later. Brazil followed the same trajectory, its middle-income population rising from 18% to 28%. 

Brazil’s advancement was internationally noted: significant progress was made in eradicating racial disparities, and job creation was accelerating swiftly as the country benefited from excellent ...