The Economy of Brazil, 1980 to Present
Location: Virtual Event
The Economy of Brazil, 1980 to Present
Speaker: Edmar Bacha (IDE MA ’65, Yale Economics PhD ’68) Visiting Assistant Professor Ana Cecilia Fieler
Event Details:
When Brazil emerged from military rule in the 1980s, the resource-rich country was poised for strong and steady growth. By 2019 it had the largest economy in Latin America and the 9th largest in the word. The intervening years, however, saw periods of rampant inflation, high unemployment, and scandal – and today Brazil has one of the highest rates of income inequality in the world. What has gone right and wrong in Brazil, and how can this diverse country emerge from the Covid-19 economic crisis on a path to greater prosperity for all of its citizens?
Edmar Bacha attended Yale’s International Development and Economics (IDE) Masters program in the 1960s and went on to gain a PhD from Yale Economics. In the 1990s, Bacha was part of a group of economists who came up with a plan based on a virtual currency, Units of Real Value (URV), that succeeded in slowing Brazil’s rampant inflation and helped turn the economy around. Now he returns to Yale (virtually) to give a presentation, “What’s gone wrong with Brazil’s economy?” and discuss research with Ana Cecilia Fieler, Visiting Assistant Professor of Economics.
The event is part of the celebration of EGC’s 60th and IDE’s 65th anniversaries, and concludes a multi-day forum where IDE students and the wider community will hear from an array of IDE alumni who are now faculty at top-tier research universities themselves.
Registration is required in advance.