The peculiar insertion of Brazil into global value chains

Brazil plays a very peculiar role in global value chains (GVC): the country imports high technological goods in general while going through early deindustrialization and relying mainly on basic goods for its exports. Even after developing a broad, diversified industrial framework and becoming one of the countries that has received more foreign direct investments since the 1990s, Brazil has been struggling to occupy a more technologically oriented place in GVCs. This paper examines the conditionings of this pattern of insertion by characterizing the country's quantitative and qualitative model of integration into GVCs and by analyzing the elements that can explain this performance.