The political economy of economic policy: industrial entrepreneurs and macroeconomic prices in Brazil (2003-2016)

Abstract

The article aims to discuss aspects of the contemporary Brazilian political econ-omy, showing how Brazilian large manufacturing entrepreneurs acted in defense of their in-terests in the dispute over the design of economic policy throughout the Partido dos Traba-lhadore (Workers’ Party) governments between 2003 and 2016. It is argued that is possible to identify an inter-class dispute over the definition of four macroeconomic prices – the profit rate, the interest rate, the exchange rate, and the wage rate – which places industrial capitalists sometimes against the rentier sector, sometimes against the labor movement in Brazil.