The empirical literature on Kaleckian growth and distribution models consists almost exclusively of studies of developed countries. These studies have used varied econometric techniques and estimation methods, but little attention has been given to developing countries. Onaran and Galanis (2013) provide an extensive review of this literature, and they complement it by estimating models for some developing countries. However, owing to lack of data they were unable to estimate their model for Brazil. This paper expands the empirical literature by applying it to Brazil. The Brazilian demand regime is analysed for the period of 1956–2008, using functional distribution of income data supplied by Adalmir Marquetti (which was developed in a paper by Marquetti et al. 2010). The paper estimates the open-economy Bhaduri–Marglin model using the single-equation technique outlined in Hein and Vogel (2008). The results of the estimation show that the demand regime in Brazil is wage-led domestically despite being an open economy. Consequently, increases in the profit share tend to diminish demand. The paper concludes with some policy implications of the findings.