A keyword on the footer: the Furtadian and the (re)current meaning of structural reforms

Abstract

A semantic change has occurred in the scope of structural reforms’ term. This article reviews Celso Furtado’s work, in particular, the ones related to this specific topic, and compares it with the current literature. It appears that structural reforms in the Furtadian conception connoted base transformations and were guided by the developmentalism school of thought. Nowadays, it is of general knowledge that, under the new-institutionalist influence, “structural reforms” are associated with liberal policies for monitoring fiscal consolidations, without consensus as to the power of effectiveness. The effort to rescue and understand the original conceptions of certain keywords in the economic development literature, as well as the way in which their interpretations and practices modify over time, is shown to be of paramount importance as the capitalist system struggle to find ways of adapting itself to the current situation of developing economies.