The economy of Brazil is the world's sixth largest by nominal GDP and is expected to become fifth by the end of 2012.Brazil has moderately free markets and an inward-oriented economy. Its economy is the largest in Latin American nations and the second largest in the western hemisphere. Brazil is one of the fastest-growing major economies in the world with an average annual GDP growth rate of over 5 percent. In Brazilian reals, its GDP was estimated at R$ 3.143 trillion in 2009. The Brazilian economy has been predicted to become one of the five largest economies in the world in the decades to come. Brazil is a member of diverse economic organizations, such as Mercosul, Unasul, G8+5, G20, WTO, and the Cairns Group. Its trade partners number in the hundreds, with 60 percent of exports mostly of manufactured or semimanufactured goods. Brazil's main trade partners in 2008 were: Mercosul and Latin America (25.9 percent of trade), EU (23.4 percent), Asia (18.9 percent), the United States (14.0 percent), and others (17.8 percent).

Brazil ⁱ/brəˈzɪl/ (Portuguese: Brasil, IPA: [bɾaˈziw]), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: República Federativa do Brasil,  listen (help·info)), is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people. It is the only Portuguese-speaking country in the Americas and the largest lusophone country in the world.

Bounded by the Atlantic Ocean on the east, Brazil has a coastline of 7,491 km (4,655 mi). It is bordered on the north by Venezuela, Guyana, Suriname and the French overseas region of French Guiana; on the northwest by Colombia; on the west by Bolivia and Peru; on the southwest by Argentina and Paraguay and on the south by Uruguay. Numerous archipelagos form part of Brazilian territory, such as Fernando de Noronha, Rocas Atoll, Saint Peter and Paul Rocks, and Trindade and Martim Vaz. It borders all other South American countries except Ecuador and Chile.

Brazil was a colony of Portugal from the landing of Pedro Álvares Cabral in 1500 until 1815, when it was elevated to the rank of kingdom and the United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil and the Algarves was formed. The colonial bond was in fact broken in 1808, when the capital of the Portuguese colonial empire was transferred from Lisbon to Rio de Janeiro, after Napoleon invaded Portugal.Independence was achieved in 1822 with the formation of the Empire of Brazil, a unitary state governed under a constitutional monarchy and a parliamentary system. The country became a presidential republic in 1889, when a military coup d'état proclaimed the Republic, although the bicameral legislature, now called Congress, dates back to the ratification of the first constitution in 1824. Its current Constitution, formulated in 1988, defines Brazil as a Federal Republic. The Federation is formed by the union of the Federal District, the 26 States, and the 5,564 Municipalities.

Albert Fishlow is the director of the Columbia Institute of Latin American Studies and director of the Center for the Study of Brazil at Columbia. He was previously the Paul A. Volcker Senior Fellow for International Economics at the Council of Foreign Relations.

Dr. Fishlow's published research has addressed issues in economic history, Brazilian and Latin American development strategy, as well as economic relations between industrialized and developing countries. Dr. Fishlow has served as deputy assistant secretary of state for inter-American affairs from 1970 to 1976. In 1999, he was awarded the National Order of the Southern Cross by the government of Brazil.

Dr. Fishlow received his BA from the University of Pennsylvania and his PhD from Harvard University. Previously, Dr. Fishlow was professor of economics at the University of California, Berkeley and dean of international and area studies. He has also been visiting professor at the Yale School of Management and professor of economics and director of the Center for International and Area Studies at Yale University.

Avram Noam Chomsky (/ˈnoʊm ˈtʃɒmski/; born December 7, 1928) is an American linguist, philosopher,cognitive scientist, historian, and activist. He is an Institute Professor and Professor (Emeritus) in the Department of Linguistics & Philosophy at MIT, where he has worked for over 50 years. Chomsky has been described as the "father of modern linguistics" and a major figure of analytic philosophy. His work has influenced fields such as computer science, mathematics, and psychology.

Ideologically identifying with anarcho-syndicalism and libertarian socialism, Chomsky is known for his critiques of U.S. foreign policy and contemporary capitalism, and he has been described as a prominent cultural figure. His media criticism has included Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media (1988), co-written with Edward S. Herman, an analysis articulating the propaganda model theory for examining the media.

According to the Arts and Humanities Citation Index in 1992, Chomsky was cited as a source more often than any other living scholar from 1980 to 1992, and was the eighth most cited source overall. Chomsky is the author of over 100 books. He is credited as the creator or co-creator of the Chomsky hierarchy, the universal grammar theory, and the Chomsky–Schützenberger theorem.