In Brazil, the confluence of strong global demand for the country’s major products, global successes for its major corporations, and steady results from its economic policies is building confidence and even reviving dreams of grandeza—the greatness that has proven elusive in the past. Even as the current economic crisis tempers expectations of the future, the trends identified in this book suggest that Brazil will continue its path toward becoming a leading economic power in the future.

Once seen as an economic backwater, Brazil now occupies key niches in energy, agriculture, service industries, and even high technology. Yet Latin America’s largest nation still struggles with endemic inequality issues and deep-seated ambivalence toward global economic integration.

Scholars and policy practitioners from Brazil, the United States, and Europe recently gathered to investigate the present state and likely future of the Brazilian economy. This important volume is the timely result. In Brazil as an Economic Superpower? international authorities focus on five key topics: agribusiness, energy, trade, social investment, and multinational corporations. Their analyses and expertise provide not only a unique and authoritative picture of the Brazilian economy but also a useful lens through which to view the changing global economy as a whole.

Foreword

1. Brazil: The “B” Belongs in the BRICS

Part One
Brazil as an agricultural and Energy Superpower

1. Brazil as an Internatonal Energy Player
2. Brazil as an Agricultural and Agroenergy Superpower
3. Brazil: The Challenges in Becoming an Agricultural Superpower

Part Two
Opening MarketsL Brazils Trade Policy

1. Brazils Trade Policy: Moving Away from Old Paradigms?
2. Brazils Trade Policy: Old and News Issues

Part Three
Extendings Brazilian Multinationals Global Reach

1. Big Business in Brazil: Leveraging Natual Endowments and State Support for Intern ational Expansion
2. Technology, Public Policy, and the Emergence of Brazilian Multinationals

Part Four
Brazil as an Equitable Opportunity Society

1. Income Policies, Income Distribution, and the Distribution of Opportuinites in Brazil

Contributors
Index