Currency crisis and fiscal adjustment

We believe that the balance-of-payment crisis literature can offer the basis tounderstand the current economic turmoil in Brazil. According to our calculations the realexchange rate requires a 15% to 20% devaluation so as to assure that the intertemporal balance-of-payments constraint is not violate...

ver descrição completa

Detalhes bibliográficos
Autor: Schwartsman, Alexandre
Formato: artículo
Estado:Versión publicada
Fecha de publicación:1999
País:Brasil
Recursos:EDITORA 34
Repositorio:Revista de Economia Política
Idioma:portugués
OAI Identifier:oai:ojs2.centrodeeconomiapolitica.org:article/1043
Acesso em linha:https://centrodeeconomiapolitica.org.br/repojs/index.php/journal/article/view/1043
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palavra-chave:Currency crisis
capital flows
exchange rate regime
balance of payments
Crises cambiais
fluxos de capital
regimes cambiais
balanço de pagamentos
Descrição
Resumo:We believe that the balance-of-payment crisis literature can offer the basis tounderstand the current economic turmoil in Brazil. According to our calculations the realexchange rate requires a 15% to 20% devaluation so as to assure that the intertemporal balance-of-payments constraint is not violated. Such appreciated currency (and the FX policydesigned to reduce the appreciation) imposes a heavy burden on monetary policy: coveredinterest parity implies high real domestic interest rates in order to finance the current account.Eventually the defense of the exchange rate requires an additional increase in interestrates, accepted by the government, the weight of stability in the government loss functionseems to be much higher than the assigned to unemployment (or growth). Yet – despite suchpreferences – the existence of a large budget deficit imposes objective limits on the use ofinterest rates as a means to defend the currency. In the absence of a sharp fiscal adjustment monetary policy will no longer be credible. In this sense, the fiscal adjustment is a crucialelement to sustain the current FX policy. JEL Classification: F31; F41; F32.