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This paper empirically models the dynamics of Brazilian government bond (BGB) yields based on monthly macroeconomic data, in the context of the evolution of the key macroeconomic variables in Brazil. The results show that the current short-term interest rate has a decisive influence on the long-term interest rate on BGBs, after controlling for various key macroeconomic variables, such as inflation and industrial production. These findings support John Maynard Keynes's claim that the central bank's actions influence the long-term interest rate on government bonds mainly through the current short-term interest rate. These findings have important policy implications for Brazil. This paper relates the findings of the estimated models to ongoing debates in fiscal and monetary policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This paper aims to investigate the existing relations between the management of public bonds on the dynamics of debt, term structure of interest rates and economic cycle, through a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model (DSGE), which was estimated through Bayesian inference techniques using data from Brazil. Design/methodology/approach: The model developed was used to investigate the effects of the public debt average maturity management when the economy faces a monetary policy shock. For this, three management scenarios are evaluated, including Brazilian securities average term. Findings: Contrary to what might be inferred from DSGE models that limited the analysis of the debt term by imposing only one-period bonds, a contractionary monetary policy shock does not necessarily cause public debt to increase significantly. Debt term structure plays a crucial role in this result since the government does not need to roll the debt over at higher costs when the debt term profile is longer, reducing the debt service costs and then the impact on the overall debt. Originality/value: Despite the relevance of this theme and its implications for the dynamics of the economy, there is still a gap to be filled in the literature when using DSGE models, since most part of the work that used this methodology limited the analysis of the debt term by imposing that government issues only one-period bonds. This paper differs from the others insofar as it promotes an investigation focused on the role played by debt maturity management on the performance of the contractionary monetary policy. This approach can generate a better understanding of debt management policy and its interaction with fiscal and monetary policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This paper evaluates the effects of tax incentives on business innovation in Brazil that were established by Law 11,196/05 (the "Fiscal Incentives Law") to test whether they have had a positive impact on beneficiary firms' innovation input and output and on their performance. Design/methodology/approach: The policy impacts are estimated using microdata on 13,706 firms available in the 2008 and 2011 editions of the Brazilian Innovation Survey (PINTEC) and by applying propensity score matching with difference-in-differences. Findings: The results suggest a positive and statistically significant impact of the policy on research and development (R&D) expenditures (average of approximately US$ 264,000 in 2011), the number of research staff (average of five researchers) and total employment (approximately 5% of the beneficiary firms' mean size). However, no impact was found on the overall spending on innovative activities, the percentage of sales and exports from new products, net revenue or net revenue per employee. Practical implications: The findings provide empirical support in favor of tax incentives as a policy tool to boost business innovation in the country. However, the absence of significant effects on innovative activities expenditures and on most indicators of innovation output and firms' performance reveals shortcomings of the policy that need to be addressed. Originality/value: The study complements and advances the findings of previous studies by assessing policy impact on total innovative activities expenditures and on innovation output and firm performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the impact of methane emissions taxation on the recovery of the investments required for implementing technologies that use biogas energy in small wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) in Brazil. It is based on the hypothesis that the adoption of a national methane emission tax policy would encourage small WWTPs to become sustainable power plants. The procedure involved 173 anaerobic plants to analyze: (a) methane production; (b) available useful energy; (c) investments and avoided costs for implementing STHIL system (thermal drying sludge) and motor generator (electricity generation); (d) financial impact for two scenarios (C1: no emissions tax; C2: with tax). Positive environmental and financial results were observed for WWTPs, varying according to the period of time analyzed for both technologies. Investments must be made in cogeneration in anaerobic WWTPs for achieving satisfactory results. Taxation must not be viewed simply as a punitive instrument; on the contrary, it should be seen as a tool to encourage continuous process improvement. The circular economy may support the enlargement of the wastewater collection and treatment system, guaranteeing widespread sanitation conditions in urban areas. However, the actual implementation of a methane emission tax in Brazil still requires many rounds of discussion among sanitation companies, government, and civil society, to establish emission limits, and unit taxes, as well as to consolidate a carbon trade to follow through with this decision in the sanitation sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates whether news‐based measures of economic uncertainty affect professional forecasters' disagreement about economic variables and economic policy instruments in Brazil. With the use of an "Economic Policy Uncertainty" index and a "Media Uncertainty" index to construct an index of economic uncertainty unrelated to policy, we study the effects of economic policy uncertainty and policy‐unrelated economic uncertainty on professional forecasters' disagreement. With the use of data from January 2002 to January 2021, we find that disagreements in expectations increase with both higher economic policy uncertainty and higher policy‐unrelated economic uncertainty. An exception is disagreement about future inflation, corroborating the importance inflation targeting for anchoring inflation expectations. We further show that economic policy uncertainty affects disagreement about Brazilian fiscal policy, whereas it does not affect disagreement about Brazilian monetary policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the relationship between fiscal decentralization and economic growth in Brazilian states from 1996 to 2015. Using five decentralization measures and the GMM-System model to address the endogeneity problem, we have identified a positive relationship between the indicators of fiscal decentralization and economic growth and observed that the industry and service sectors are the most affected by this decentralization. Our results suggest that local governments with more autonomy make states more efficient, thus increasing economic growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to examine the effects of fiscal policy on economic growth in Brazil between 1999 and 2017. For this purpose, a novel methodology is applied, using a Vector Autoregressive with Mixed Frequency (MIDAS-VAR) model, proposed by Ghysels (2016), which allows for the estimation of the spending multiplier by measuring the impact of high-frequency data at low-frequency and vice versa. The impact of various types of spending on the gross domestic product (GDP) is analyzed, including primary expenditure, personnel, social benefits, subsidies, investment, and costing, while the central government's primary revenue is used as the revenue variable. The expenditure and tax revenue are the high-frequency variables (monthly observations), whereas GDP is a low-frequency series (quarterly). The estimated fiscal multipliers for primary spending are less than one, suggesting no significant Keynesian effect on output, with particular attention given to the investment multiplier, which is estimated to be close to zero. Our results suggest that the frequency of data matters, and government expenditure has no significant impact on real GDP growth in Brazil. Therefore, the ability of Brazilian fiscal policy to influence economic growth may be limited. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This paper aims to analyze the macroeconomic effects of a monetary policy shock considering that fiscal policy is under fiscal constraints. For that, a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) model was developed for Brazil, which was estimated through Bayesian econometrics. Design/methodology/approach: In the basic model, the government does not have any type of fiscal restriction. The other two estimated models, however, consider that the fiscal authority implements some kind of fiscal rule. One of these rules is the Constitutional Amendment 95/2016 (EA 95/2016), which includes a limitation for government spending. The other Alternative Rule seeks to represent the characteristics of a more austere fiscal rule, as proposed by Wesselbaum (2017). Findings: It was possible to verify in this paper that the implementation of EA 95/2016 by the Brazilian government does not produce statistically different results and that it reduces the welfare of the households in relation to the scenario without fiscal rule. Thus, the proportionate benefit of EA 95/2016 is less than the cost associated with this fiscal rule (less welfare). If the government adopts a fiscal constraint similar to the Alternative Rule, it is possible to considerably reduce the interaction between fiscal and monetary policy, thereby reducing the fiscal dominance policy over monetary policy. However, the cost in terms of welfare is much higher than the baseline scenario. Thus, the fiscal authority is subject to a trade-off among public debt stabilization and household welfare. Originality/value: The study intends to contribute to the literature on three specific points. First, the monetary–fiscal policy interaction within a representative model of the Brazilian economy is discussed. In addition, the study considers that the government can adopt EA 95/2016 and the Alternative Rule, used in the US economy. Second, the impacts of EA 95/2016 and the Alternative Rule on household welfare will be quantified. Finally, two types of individuals (Ricardian and non-Ricardian agents) and two sectors of production (wholesalers and retailers) are considered. In this paper, the DSGE model is estimated, since the previously mentioned authors performed simulations [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the nonlinear impacts of fiscal balances on interest rates, exchange rates and inflation in large emerging economies. The paper applies asymmetric cointegration modelling in a nonlinear autoregression distributed lag framework to discriminate the effects of negative and positive changes in the fiscal balance on monetary variables in BRICs. This approach is advantageous to the analysis of dynamic asymmetric relationships in both the long and short run regardless of whether variables are a mix of I(0) and I(1). A distinctive feature of this study is that the main result indicates that monetary variables react differently to negative and positive changes in fiscal balances over the long run for Brazil and India, but not for the others. Since interest rates and inflation are more sensitive to worsening fiscal position, fiscal consolidation is an essential criterion for the effectiveness of monetary policy in the economies characterised with large fiscal imbalance and debt stocks, such as Brazil and India. The implementation of expansionary fiscal policy should be reconsidered carefully in economies with a better fiscal performance like China and Russia, since the persistently rising budget deficits eventually countered the effectiveness of monetary policy by keeping market interest rates and inflation at high levels. This paper provides evidence in favour of the dominant role of fiscal policy to stabilise monetary variables in large emerging economies. We also highlight the importance of long-term fiscal sustainability to improve the monetary policy effectiveness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article adapts the Public Sector Financial Fragility Index to exam the Brazilian federal government financial posture over 2000–2016. This Index enables examining public finances based on Minsky's financial fragility hypothesis. The paper undertakes three analyses: one explores the federal government financial fragility using the borrowing requirements data, which is the standard series to assess public finances. The second analysis makes use of the budget execution data, comprising all governmental cash flows, including the financial revenues and expenses but excluding credit operations, which are new debt borrowed by the government; this new debt is considered in the third analysis. The outcomes show that, in its borrowing requirements, the Brazilian government was Speculative over 2000–2013, and Ponzi from 2014 to 2016. Applying the Index to the budget execution data, Brazil was Speculative throughout the period. Considering the budget execution added with credit operations, Brazil was mostly Hedge, although artificially, because built on new debt and not on government revenues. Parallelly, the Index enables analyzing the type of the Brazilian fiscal policy, if pro or countercyclical: it was chiefly procyclical, maintaining Speculative and Ponzi postures whilst the GDP grew, a diverse behavior in relation to the Post Keynesian proposition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we investigated two cases of regions that used expansionary fiscal policies in recent years to increase short-term economic activity: The European Monetary Union and Brazil. Using impulse response functions, we estimated the effects of fiscal stimuli in a New-Keynesian framework provided by the Markov-switching dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (MSDSGE) model. We produced a set of regime-dependent results that suggest that 1) economic policies should be analyzed from a coordination perspective and 2) the selected cases need to make better use of fiscal instruments and to make more accommodative public debt decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of América Latina Hoy is the property of Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This article investigates the existence of a link between financial cycles and fiscal cycles, and discusses possible policy implications for developing and emerging economies (DEEs). It empirically analyses the impact of financial cycle shocks on the short-term dynamics of Brazil's fiscal policy by estimating a vector autoregressive (VAR) model for the period 1997–2018. The results indicate that financial cycles have pro-cyclical effects on the fiscal policy. This suggests that a fiscal policy should consider not only the cyclical behaviour of the output, but also its role in minimising financial factors. By explicitly linking Brazil's fiscal performance with Brazil's higher vulnerability to the financial cycle, this article adds to the literature that strives to understand the policy implications of the financialisation process in DEEs. It also contributes to the more general empirical literature on DEEs' fiscal dynamics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is a case study of a particularly important and well known experiment in participatory economic democracy, participatory budgeting (PB) in Porto Alegre under the Workers’ Party. Its intention is to draw both positive and negative lessons from this experience. There are three fundamental parts to the paper. The first part sets the frame for understanding this experiment by reviewing several relevant considerations of participatory democracy in general, and then describing the institutional structure of Porto Alegre’s PB. The second part is an empirical investigation for this case of three central issues in participatory economic democracy: participation, the nature of choices, and the resulting redistribution. A third part considers a number of limitations of the PB process as it occurred in Porto Alegre from the perspective of economic democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to analyse the relationship between infrastructure and total factor productivity (TFP) in the four major Latin American economies: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Mexico. Design/methodology/approach – The authors hypothesise that an increase in infrastructure has an indirect effect on output by raising productivity. To assess this theory, the traditional Johansen methodology was used for testing the cointegration between TFP and physical measures of infrastructure stock, such as energy, roads, and telephones. The Lütkepohl, Saikkonen and Trenkler Test, which considers a possible level shift in the series and has better small sample properties, was applied to the same data set and the two tests were compared. Findings – The results do not support a robust long-term relationship between the series; the authors do not find strong evidence that cuts in infrastructure investment in some Latin American countries were the main reason for the fall in TFP during the 1970s and 1980s. Originality/value – The present paper addresses the empirical relationship between infrastructure and economic growth for Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Mexico between 1950 and 2000, using new time series econometric methods finding new evidences on this relationship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes the Brazilian experience with inflation targeting in 1999-2006. The data presented in the paper show that inflation targeting managed to reduce inflation in Brazil after its 1999 and 2002 currency crises, with a substantial help of exchange-rate appreciation. The data also show that economic growth was slow under inflation targeting than during exchange-rate targeting in Brazil, but with a smaller volatility and an apparent upward trend during inflation targeting than during exchange-rate targeting. The paper also shows that inflation targeting reduced the real interest rate of the economy, which nevertheless remained well above international standards and more than three times higher than the Brazilian gross domestic product growth rate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the effect of political participation on public spending at the local level in Brazil. In particular, we look at the phased-in implementation of electronic voting in the late 1990s—which enfranchised poorer voters by decreasing the number of invalid votes—to identify the causal effect of political participation on public spending. We build a theoretical political economy model which allows voters to cast, not purposefully, an invalid vote, and show that when poorer voters' likelihood of casting a valid vote increases, public social spending increases as well. We test this prediction empirically using a difference-in-differences model where municipalities using electronic voting constitute our treatment group. We find that an increase of 1 percentage point in the valid vote to turnout ratio for state representatives increases health spending by 1.8%; education by 1.4%; public employment by 1.25%; intergovernmental transfers by 1%; and local taxes by 2.6%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Environmental & Social Management Journal / Revista de Gestão Social e Ambiental is the property of Environmental & Social Management Journal and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Cadernos de Gestão Pública e Cidadania is the property of Fundacao Getulio Vargas, Escola Brasileira de Administracao Publica e de Empresas and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

ABSTRACT Irresponsible fiscal behavior by subnational units is a concern for federal or decentralized systems, especially in the developing world. States' expenditures in Brazil have been no different. Still, spending varies considerably among the Brazilian states, even after controlling for their financial resources. This article provides a political explanation for the variation in current spending, focusing on intergovernmental political relationships. It argues that credit claiming for pork distributed in a state plays a crucial role and that governors elevate state spending in order to make up for their loss in political credit from the pork distributed by the president. Analyzing data from the period 1996-2005, it finds that expenditures decrease as the relative number of federal deputies from the state governor's party increases compared to the number of deputies from the president's governing coalition when the national agenda encourages federal pork distribution in the states. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose – This analysis seeks to deal with the emerging economies and to reveal that, if the fiscal authority is accountable with a policy that stabilizes the public debt/GDP ratio, the consequence is a low Treasury bond risk premium. Design/methodology/approach – Based on the purpose of this paper, a theoretical model is developed and empirical evidence through an autoregressive distributed lag (ADL) model, taking into account the Brazilian experience, is made. Findings – The findings denote that domestic variables are responsible for determining the risk premium. Moreover, a correct management of the public debt and the use of primary surplus targets make for a good strategy for promoting a fall in the Treasury bond risk premium. Practical implications – Primary surplus and public debt/GDP ratio can be used as important tools for mitigating the Treasury bond risk premium. Originality/value – The results of the paper give some new insights about the management of fiscal policy for developing countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses a new panel of more than 2,000 Brazilian municipalities over 13 years to analyze the influence of public expenditures on the probability of mayors’ reelection. We examine Brazilian municipal elections from 1988 to 2000 using a logit fixed-effects model. The results suggest that mayors who spend more during their terms of office increase the probability of their own reelection or of a successor of the same political party. In particular, higher capital spending over the years preceding elections and current expenditures in election years are beneficial to Brazilian incumbent mayors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper suggests that the time-inconsistency approach is inadequate to analyze the political economy of monetary policy in Brazil. The paper develops an alternative theory that emphasizes distributive conflict, and argues that building credibility with a fixed exchange rate and through inflation-targeting was not central for stabilization. A contested-terrain analysis of the Brazilian case suggests that the current monetary regime benefits financial or rentier interests while the manufacturing sector and workers bear the costs of this policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this paper is to examine the relationship between fiscal and monetary policy coordination and fiscal multipliers in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Mexico. To do so, we first look at the theoretical framework of the New Consensus Macroeconomics (NCM), and then analyze the trends in the four countries for variables including consumption, investment, government spending, and interest rates. Finally, we present an estimate of the spending and monetary multipliers with proxy variables. The contribution of this paper consists of one, showing the inexistence of the crowding out effect, and two, quantifying the multipliers for the aforementioned countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Our objective in this paper is to build expectations anchoring indexes for inflation in Brazil that are fundamentally driven by the monetary authority's capacity to anchor long-term inflation expectations. The expectations anchoring indexes are generated from a Kalman filter, based on a state-space model that also takes into account fiscal policy dynamics. The model's signals are constructed using inflation expectations from the Focus survey of professional forecasters, conducted by the Central Bank of Brazil, and from the swap and federal government bond markets, which convey daily information of long-term inflation expectations. Although varying across specifications, the expectations anchoring indexes that we propose tend to display a downward trajectory, more clearly in 2009, and show a recovery starting in 2016 until the end of the sample (mid-2017). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Nova Economia is the property of Nova Economia and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In this paper, I discuss ways in which several important fiscal and monetary policies implemented in Brazil after the Real Plan interfered with class relations and how they reveal the financial class character of the state. The fiscal policies analyzed are the release of federal tax revenue entitlements, the so-called fiscal responsibility, and the goals for the primary and nominal fiscal results. In the realm of monetary policy, the analysis focuses on the priority given to inflation control and inflation targeting. The results suggest that these policies facilitated favoritism towards the financial fraction of capital; the policies constitute an institutional apparatus for the reproduction of the income that finance extorts from labor through the state. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Copyright of Brazilian Journal of Applied Economics / Economía Aplicada is the property of FEA-RP, Universidade de Sao Paulo and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of REUNIR: Revista de Administração, Contabilidade e Sustentabilidade is the property of REUNIR - Revista de Administracao, Contabilidade e Sustentabilidade and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Brazilian Journal of Applied Economics / Economía Aplicada is the property of FEA-RP, Universidade de Sao Paulo and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Brazilian Review of Economics & Agribusiness / Revista de Economia e Agronegócio is the property of Brazilian Review of Economics & Agribusiness / Revista de Economia e Agronegocio and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Brazilian Journal of Applied Economics / Economía Aplicada is the property of FEA-RP, Universidade de Sao Paulo and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Brazilian Journal of Applied Economics / Economía Aplicada is the property of FEA-RP, Universidade de Sao Paulo and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The aim of this paper is to focus on the institutional process by which the Brazilian government spends, borrows, and collects taxes. I am going to evaluate the conventional view that taxes finance government spending, that bond sales are financing operations, and that the Brazilian federal government is operationally constrained. This view arises from a misunderstanding of both treasury and central bank operations. Balance sheets are used to show the reserve effects of the treasury and central bank operations and to explain the cooperation between the central bank and the treasury. It concludes that logically taxes and bonds can not finance government spending and that a sovereign government that issues its own non convertible currency can not become insolvent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista de Economia e Sociologia Rural is the property of Sociedade Brasileira de Economia e Sociologia Rural and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper develops a model that captures important features of debt crises of the Brazilian type. Its applicability to Brazil lies in the facts that (1) macroeconomic fundamentals were relatively sound in the wake of the crisis (e.g., a nonnegligible primary surplus, a relatively low debt-GDP ratio, and low inflation); and (2) the trigger for the crisis—forthcoming elections with an expected regime change— appears to be extraneous. We rationalize the sort of circularity involved in a country's credit rating. In particular, we show how country credit ratings could bring about unstable macroeconomic behavior, and explore the implications of such behavior for fiscal policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Brazil's President Femando Henrique Cardoso will be remembered for his administration's accomplishments as well as the problems his government left unresolved. On the one hand, fiscal policy represents one of Cardoso's success stories: the Plano Real curbed inflation, established economic stability, and enabled the central government to rein in subnational governments' out-of-control spending patterns, which had been a key source of macroeconomic instability. However, the question remains whether Brazil can truly escape from the political and economic consequences of past fiscal profligacy. Despite many successes, Cardoso's own policies have created additional obstacles that future administrations will necessarily confront, in particular a dramatic increase in Brazil's internal debt. Observers of Brazil should count both sides of the accounting ledger when evaluating the Cardoso administration. Much has been gained, but the costs of those gains must be recognised and the impact of those gains on the range of policy choice available to future administrations understood. This article explores the factors that contributed to Brazil's macroeconomic difficulties prior to 1995, and then explores how the Plano Real provided the Cardoso administration with leverage to constrain the capacity of subnational actors to affect Brazil's economy. Subsequently, however, the paper describes how the Cardoso administration's polities have created Brazil's current 'fiscal straitjacket', and concludes by discussing how Cardoso's policies will constrain future administrations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Revista de Economia e Administração is the property of INSPER Instituto de Ensino e Pesquisa and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The paper aims at identification of the main explanatory factors of the currency crises in Brazil. Following Choueiri and Kaminsky (1997) a VAR monetary model is used and the historical decomposition procedure developed by Sims (1980) to evaluate the importance of the 'fundamentals' represented by fiscal/monetary and exchange-rate policies, and the 'external factors' represented by foreign interest rates and contagious effects. The main results show the importance of the exchange-rate management on the overall period and the contagious effects more recently to explain the Brazilian currency crises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the relationship between the financial instability generated by shortterm capital flows in the absence of control mechanisms and the restrictions facing the implementation of counter-cyclical fiscal policies in the inflation-targeting regime, using as a springboard the recent financial crises in, specifically, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, and Peru, showing how an increase in the issuance of public bonds to, via interventions in the exchange rate market, sterilize the effects of short-term capital flows on the monetary base is a source of endogenous instability, because this mechanism entails risks for the exchange rate and interest rate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This manuscript investigates the unsuccessful case of the fiscal decentralization policy implemented by the Brazilian central government to help municipalities fight COVID‐19. Based on quantitative analyses of data available on governmental websites, we identified that the transfer policy had ignored municipalities' risk patterns and income changes. It benefited municipalities regardless of their vulnerability and population infection risks, and many municipalities reduced healthcare expenditures funded by their revenues during the pandemic. Hence, some municipalities made a "pandemic surplus" in 2020 – a municipal electoral year. Indeed, COVID‐19 killed 663,694 people in Brazil until 4 May 2022. Lessons from an unsuccessful case of response to COVID‐19 help develop resilience for other crises by emerging market economies and developing countries. The findings have implications for policymakers and literature since they represent inadequate vertical coordination that followed a path dependence on traditional decentralization policies and took place in a year of municipal elections without clear spending and accountability rules. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The limits for expenditure on personnel that were imposed by the Fiscal Responsibility Act (FRA) have been considered by local health managers as an obstacle to health sector policies. This paper analyzes the linear trend for the personnel expenses indicators and the correlation of this with the profile of spending on health care personnel in 5,356 Brazilian municipalities from 2004 to 2009. The study of the time series used data from the 'Finanças do Brasil' (Finbra) and data from the Information System on Public Health Budgets (SIOPS). There was a trend towards an increase of 1.3% in the annual average of total personnel expenditure in the municipalities, but the cost of health care staff did not follow that growth. There were no correlations between the indicators, and this result is contrary to the arguments given by the health managers. They attribute the problems with hiring workers and the expansion of health systems to the FRA. The availability of data from the Finbra and the Siops system is associated with a lack of knowledge on these issues. This makes it an opportune time for conducting new research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bitcoin, created in 2008, is the first successful cryptocurrency. Bitcoin involves an industry, in which besides users, we have group of developers; miners; wallet providers; mixer providers; stock exchanges; and crypto banks. There are already countries whose tax policies accept bitcoins. It is that last aspect that this article is about. The article will initially seek to define Bitcoin and its industry, which are sources of much controversy. It will then discuss whether it is advantageous for taxpayers to honor their tax commitments with bitcoins, and under what circumstances it would be advantageous for public management to deal with bitcoins in their tax policy. In Brazil, the municipality of Rio de Janeiro plans to accept bitcoins in tax payments in 2023, and Brazil is preparing to improve its institutional framework for dealing with cryptocurrencies through Law 14,478/2022. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the effects of fiscal opacity, fiscal impulse, and fiscal credibility on disagreement about economic growth forecasts. Regarding fiscal opacity, as a novelty, we use an indicator that captures the ignorance of financial market experts about the real budget balance condition. Fiscal impulse is represented by two fiscal impulse indicators, while fiscal credibility is represented by two credibility indexes. The findings suggest an increase in fiscal opacity and the adoption of discretionary fiscal policy raise disagreement about economic growth forecasts. The results suggest that fiscal credibility improvements reduce disagreement about economic growth forecasts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We perform the first comprehensive fiscal incidence analyses in Brazil and the U. S., including direct cash and food transfers, targeted housing and heating subsidies, public spending on health and education, and taxes on personal income, payroll, corporate income, property, and expenditures. The countries share a number of similarities that make the comparison interesting, including high levels of inequality given their levels of development, high inequality of opportunity, large and racially diverse populations, and similar sizes of government. The U. S. achieves higher redistribution through direct taxes and transfers, primarily because Brazil underutilizes personal income taxes and keeps its progressive cash and food transfer programs small, while its larger transfer programs are less progressive. When public spending on health and non-tertiary education is added to income using the government cost approach, however, the two countries achieve similar levels of redistribution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]