Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Growing like a BRIC

This video gets a little down in the weeds on Brazilian tax policy (aren't you glad you landed on this blog... we have all the fun!) but the broader point here is well made, taxes and regulation in Brazil are respectively high and onerous. Brazil has the lowest growth at around 4%-5%, with Russia growing over 6%, India at 8% and China over 10%. Although interestingly, Brazil scores the highest of the BRIC countries in the Heritage Foundation's economic freedom index, so taxes or no taxes, they must be doing something right... or at least better.

Also, Brazilians seem to be very enthusiastic about globalization and are among the few who would actually like to see the pace of change quicken; far more so than Indians or the Chinese. Without have any data to back this up, a wild guess why this may be is that Brazilians see the benefits of globalization but are frustrated they cannot reap these benefits fully because of their cumbersome tax structure.


No comments: