Employment and Development under Globalization : State and Economy in Brazil

Cohn lays out a new strategy of how states can produce economic development in poor nations – by considering barber shops, beauty parlours, hotels and restaurants in Brazil. Cohn considers the case of nations with budgetary limits that cannot afford to follow the East Asian model, and finds alternative policies that create jobs and reduce poverty.

Globalization has changed the models of development that are open to most states both in the industrialized and less industrialized world. Using the unusual case of Brazilian barbers, beauticians, hotels and restaurants, Samuel Cohn lays out a model of the role of the state and development that is an alternative to more highly visible formulas associated with East Asia. By identifying a number of unjustly ignored government initiatives that substantially increase employment and significantly reduce poverty, he provides a third alternative to the development strategies being put forward by traditional and critical development scholars. The programs for achieving this are cheap, uncontroversial and can be effectively implemented even by governments with fiscal crises and weak administrative capacity. Yet the result is development that reduces social inequality, relieves poverty and insures the more equitable division of well-being.