The enthusiasm with which much of the world has viewed the Brazilian economy in recent years seems to have added an exclamation mark to the country’s name. Whenever someone in a foreign country asks where you are from and you say you’re Brazilian, your questioner will cheerfully exclaim: “Brazil!”.

No surprise then that Paul Krugman, a Nobel laureate in economics, affirmed during a conference in São Paulo a few days ago that Brazil “is the darling of global financial markets”.

This “Brazilmania” is due to a variety of reasons: Brazil’s competency in biofuels and its prospects of becoming an energy superpower with the pre-salt oil; conservatively responsible macroeconomic management; minimum wage policies that have improved the lives of millions; thriving agribusiness; its membership of the Brics group of emerging 21st century nations; a GDP ranking that places it among the world’s largest economies (turbopowered by its overvalued exchange rate); and the country’s resilience during the twin crises of 2008 and 2011.

Brazilmania has been good for Brazil. It has strengthened national self-confidence. Brazilians rejoice in the certainty that “we are on the right road”; that from now on “no one is holding this country back”.

Nonetheless, perceptions of Brazil around the world have already begun to change. In recent months Brazil’s growth has been close to zero. This weak performance has been influenced by the effects of the severe 2011 European crisis. Yet it is indicative of the limitations of the present development model pursued by Brazil.

Let there be no mistake. The emergence of the Brazilian economy, though unfortunately falling short of its potential, is real and it is here to stay. It is no “mirage”. The period from 2003 to the present has been one of great achievements. But nor are these sufficient to 
characterize it as a “second Brazilian miracle”, as some would have it.

If truth be told, the “first” miracle, of 1968 to 1973, a period in which average annual growth in Brazil was greater than 11 per cent, should not have been called a “miracle” either.

At that time, as now, domestic savings in Brazil were low (under 20 per cent of GDP). The country depended then, as it does today, on abundant flows of financial capital and foreign direct investment (FDI) to sustain growth.

In times when the international economy expanded amid a cheap and abundant supply of credit, as in the transition from the 1960s to the 70s, it was easy to borrow money and finance growth.

On the domestic market, repressed demand powered along by solid inflows of capital worked together splendidly to produce an artificial impression of prosperity. The first oil shock in 1973, as we call it, broke the spell of the “miracle”.

Nowadays foreign credit is also available at low prices, as it was 40 years ago – though for different reasons. The mega-crises of 2008 and 2011 have forced the central banks of the northern hemisphere to lower their interest rates to zero.

With a comparatively high money market yield and a protected (though increasingly porous) domestic market formed under a reinterpretation of the import substitution policies of the past, Brazil once again ranks high among the preferred desintations for portfolio investment and FDI.

But in 2012 Brazil’s share of the global economy is essentially the same as the one it held in 2002 (2.9 per cent), when Brazil’s risk premium [the amount of interest it had to pay to borrow, above the rate for US Treasuries] exceeded 2,400 basis points and the world feared 
the country might follow the same path as Argentina in its socially and economically tragic currency crisis of 2001.

Brazil’s growth has been lower than the average achieved over the past decade by India, Russia and China or by its Latin American neighbours which, like Brazil, increasingly – and unfortunately – have also been characterized by the low labour productivity and by an “oligoculture” of a few agricultural and mineral commodities for export.

Brazil accounts for little more than 1 per cent of international trade (it was 2 per cent in 1950) and for the past two decades has found itself stalled with investment of only 1 per cent of GDP in research & development, an essential element in fulfilling the innovation 
imperative.

The social and economic accomplishments of the past decade are undeniable, particularly when it comes to social inclusion and the fight against poverty.But Brazil’s rise is most impressive when compared with its own recent past or with its Latin American cousins. It is much less so when the comparison is with other global growth players, such as the Asian countries.

Brazil’s current local content policies, if not followed by the necessary parallel investments in training, education and R&D, will have less to do with enhancing an endogenous capacity to compete and more to do with protectionism plain and simple. While there has certainly been improvement in the lives of the poorest, the low productivity of the Brazilian worker is setting lower ceilings for future income gains.

As competitiveness is lost and the country deindustrialises faster than it reindustrialises (in sectors where local content rules have fostered investment) a high level of employment can only be maintained with new paternalist protection for local industries. Even more so as 
prices and production costs are absurdly high.

If nothing is done about the nightmare taxes, equal to nearly 40 per cent of GDP, and parochial labour regulations, they will continue to stifle Brazilian competitiveness and hold back the country’s potential for years to come. And there is obviously a limit to the the flow of FDI into Brazil geared towards setting up local operations, so that companies can gain the credentials needed to sell to the Brazilian government or to companies in which the government is a shareholder.

Consequently, Brazil ends up hailing itself for making the most out of an economy driven by domestic consumption (for how long?) and not by a trend toward savings and investment as a growing percentage of GDP.

As in the past, Brazil is using high interest rates and the overheated domestic market as countercyclical advantages. Recently, industrial policies based on ”local-contentism”, the hosting of mega-events such as the FIFA World Cup and the Olympics and its status as an energy superpower-to-be have added to the Brazilmania hype. They allow for more than simply a mirage of economic growth. But they are certainly not the magic ingredients of a miracle.