Introduction:

This paper analyses the policy responses of the Brazilian government to the contagion effect of the international financial crisis. Despite the recession in 2009 – the Brazilian GDP decreased 0.3 per cent –, and contrary to previous experience, Brazil’s economic recovery was strong in 2010 – according to the Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística GDP increased 7.5 per cent. As a result, it was one of the lessaffected economies, showing a remarkable resilience. In this context we speculate about how Keynesian the Brazilian recovery has been. We consider that Brazil has experienced a period of transition, where the return of Keynesian policy elements has not been strong enough to overcome previous neoliberal tendencies. Otherwise it has opened new future possibilities, which might be explored by the new elected government. We structured our arguments in four parts. After this brief introduction, Section 2 presents the theoretical analysis of the Keynesian economic policies for monetary economies in a context of globalisation with financial dominance. In the third section the Brazilian government’s reaction to the international financial crisis is presented. Section 4 analyses, briefly, the Brazilian economic policies during the Lula da Silva government, 2003–10. The final section summarises our arguments in order to answer our main question.