Amazonia: From Crisis to an Atypical Truncated Integration

Abstract

This paper shows that, between 1930 and 1980 the region has benefited from the federal economic policies, especially the development and integration of the domestic market, the so-called virtuous deconcentration. However, since the crisis of the 80’s and the government’s tax and financial slump, as well as the adoption of neoliberal policies from 1989 to 1990, this deterioration was even greater, with a perverse macroeconomic policy (unregulated opening, high interest rates, overvalued exchange rate, and others) and divorced from the idea of national and regional development. Thanks to neoliberalism and tax war, deconcentration that occurs in the second period becomes spurious, making the Amazon’s productive integration with the rest of the nation rather atypical and truncated. The adopted periodization is: pre 1960; 1970’s; 1980-1989; 1989-2003, and 2003-2010.