INTRODUCTION

For fifty years (1930–1980) Brazilian growth performance had been outstanding with GDP per capita increasing on average 3.7 percent annually. Growth had been particularly strong in 1967–1973, and to lesser extent in 1974–1980 In the years 1981–1983, during the administration of General João Figueiredo (1979–1985), the last of five successive military presidents since the military coup of 1964, there was a sharp deterioration in the Brazilian GDP growth performance. Brazil suffered its most severe recession of the twentieth century. GDP fell 4.9 percent from its peak in 1980. After a brief recovery in 1984–1985 when GDP grew on average 7 percent per annum – years that also witnessed a transition from military to civilian rule (and ultimately a fully fledged democracy) – growth performance remained mediocre during the following two decades. Between 1981 and 1994 GDP per capita increased on average less than 0.1 percent annually. And there was only limited improvement in the decade after 1994. There was also only modest structural change: agriculture maintained its 10 percent share of GDP from the mid-1970s to the end of the century while the share of manufacturing industry fell from its peak of 34 percent in the mid-1970s to 28 percent in 1990 and remained constant afterwards. (For economic data on selected years between 1980 and 1994, see Table 6.1.)