Expansão do mercado interno e evolução institucional no processo de industrialização: uma análise comparativa Brasil-Estados Unidos

The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the debate on the factors which prevented Brazil from becoming a fully industrialized economy, as the United States did, after the culmination of its agrarian-export period. The main conclusion is that, in the USA, basically due to its better domestic income distribution, the export sector played a much more dynamic role in generating domestic markets, thus inducing a process of institutional change which reinforced the process of economic expansion that eventually led the American economy to the threshold of its industrial phase stricto sensu. The paper finally suggests that an improvement on the income distribution profile continues to be necessary condition, although not a sufficient one, for the economic development of countries like ours.