Investment Strike? A Kaleckian Contribution to Brazilian Macroeconomics for the Period 2011-2018

Abstract

This article aims to analyze for Brazil during the governments of Dilma Rousseff (2011-2016) and Michel Temer (2016-2018), the pertinence of the concept of “investment strike” (Streeck, 2011), according to which political friction and government actions could lead to a loss of investor confidence and consequent retraction of investments, which in turn cause a recessive impact on the economy. To this end, this study discusses concepts from the intellectual production of the economist Michal Kalecki, mainly his model of 1954 on investment determination, as well as Brazilian economic data and texts of economists who have studied the period. The analysis is based on the theoretical Keynesian- Kaleckian approach on the principle of effective demand. In its conclusions, the article assesses as inconsistent the concept espoused by Streeck regarding the Brazilian economy of this period. Considering the competitive character of the capitalist system and the fact that production, both in short and long terms, is determined by the effective demand, there was no investment strike.