Gulzar points to this superb article from Daniel Gros.
Gros says Japan’s lost decade is a myth as it grew faster than US in that period of 1990s. He says much of this talk of Japan’s lost decade is based on GDP growth. But it is not the right measure:
Lula, Brazil’s President since 2002 just finished his second presidential term on Jan 1, 2011. He gave way to his former Chief of Staff, Dilma Rousseff.
He is called by many as Brazil’s most famous politician. And this is some turnaround. I remember reading Economist articles around 2002 where there was a q-mark over Latin American Leadership. Hugo Chavez in Venezuela had started these qs with his policies. And then Argentina was recovering from this huge crisis of 2001 and there were so many changes in leadership in that time. And Lula had no great track record to begin with, so people had almost taken for granted that Brazil would just decline or be a country of tomorrow.
But Lula’s term was anything but that. Brazil made major inroads in Global Economy Prospects. It is part of BRIC club, hosting both Olympics and World Cup Football etc.
Mohamed El-Erian of PIMCO has this article on Lula’s Presidential term.
