About this episode
The episode explores Brazil's economic development and the challenges of the middle income trap.
How does a poor country become a rich country? There's a simple blueprint — or at least, that's what many economists used to believe. But over the years, a lot of rapidly developing economies have stalled out. These countries aren't poor anymore, but they're not rich either. They're stuck in the middle. The World Bank calls this problem the "middle income trap." And if there's a poster child for the middle income trap, many would point to Brazil. For a time, Brazil had one of the fastest growing economies in the world. On today's show, we head to Brazil to understand why the old blueprint for economic development might not work so well anymore. The story starts in the Amazon rainforest. With an audacious plan to industrialize the country as fast as possible. Support: Planet Money+ Read: Our book: Planet Money: A Guide to the Economic Forces That Shape Your Life Our weekly longform Planet Money newsletter Our weekly Indicator round-up newsletter Follow: Instagram TikTok YouTube Facebook This episode of Planet Money was hosted by Jeff Guo. It was produced by James Sneed and Luis Gallo. It was edited by Marianne McCune, fact-checked by Sierra Juarez, translation help from Sarah…
People in this episode
Host: Jeff Guo
Topics covered
- economic development
- middle income trap
- Brazil
- industrialization
- developing economies
Keywords
- Brazil
- middle income trap
- economic development
- industrialization
- World Bank
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: World Bank
Places: Brazil, Amazon rainforest
More episodes of Planet Money
- Two indicators for lowering the rent · June 10, 2026 · 18 min
- Why is there a supplement craze if they don’t even work? · June 5, 2026 · 35 min
- There's no business like dough business · June 3, 2026 · 27 min
- The sneaky way companies get new chemicals into our food · May 29, 2026 · 36 min
- The leaked tapes that show how the rich avoid taxes · May 27, 2026 · 26 min
- Vacation and why Americans take so little · May 20, 2026 · 25 min
Explore listener stats, chart rankings, contacts and more on the Planet Money podcast page.