Explaining the Brazilian economic growth performance during the 20th is a challenging task to academics. As shown, Brazil had already experienced faster growth and recently it is far from such belle époque. Most explanations are based on conventional frameworks. This paper assesses the Balance-of-Payments constraint model to Brazilian economic growth in the period 1900-2005, highlighting the importance of the terms of trade. The results show, first, that the terms of trade are significant in the estimation of import demand function and change the income elasticity, especially in the first period of the sample (1900-1970), and, second, when the simplest Thirlwall's model is controlled by terms of trade, it seems that such variable is important through import growth, which cause changes in economic performance.
Brazilian; Terms of trade; Balance-of-Payments; Thirlwall's law
