No texto a seguir, escrito para o nível B2, vamos estudar o caso de sucesso do Chile e compará-lo ao Brasil.
Preparation
What role do democratic institutions play in the economic stability of a country?
Can investment in social policies significantly reduce poverty and inequality?
How important is fiscal discipline for a country's economic health?
Reading
Since the 1970s, Chile started market-oriented reforms like trade liberalization, state-owned enterprise privatization, and strict fiscal discipline. These changes stabilized the economy, brought foreign investment, and improved efficiency.
From the 2000s, Chile gained from high commodity prices, particularly copper, its main export. The government used this wealth to enhance infrastructure, education, and health, and to fund social policies reducing poverty and inequality.
Moreover, Chile's strict fiscal savings policy, saving copper surpluses in sovereign funds, helped cushion economic shocks like the 2008 global financial crisis.
Meanwhile, Brazil faced economic hurdles, including corruption, bureaucratic barriers, less market-oriented reform focus, and reliance on commodities without enough economic diversification. Fiscal discipline was also a challenge, leading to high budget deficits and public debt.
The graph shows the growth of GDP per capita in Chile and Brazil from 1990 to around 2020. It highlights Chile's GDP per capita increasing sharply after 2010, becoming more than double that of Brazil's. This growth can be linked to Chile's economic liberalization policies and strong democratic institutions.
These factors partly explain why Chile's GDP per capita surpassed Brazil's, showing greater economic stability in recent years.
Copper
Comments