Os fluxos internacionais de capitais para investimentos em portfólio no mercado financeiro doméstico : uma análise do caso brasileiro de 1994 a 2000

Esta dissertação procura avaliar, dentro de um contexto de economia globalizada, o comportamento dos fluxos de capitais estrangeiros para investimentos nas economias emergentes, com foco no Brasil e nos investimentos em portfólio. Considera que os fluxos desses capitais têm crescido, dramaticamente, nos últimos anos e que as propostas de reformulações do sistema financeiro internacional e a adoção de controles desses capitais não estão totalmente claras, merecendo maiores estudos. Por meio de comparação entre os fluxos para investimentos em portfólio e os direcionados para investimentos diretos, o texto, aborda e questiona também, conceitos que, geralmente, relacionam esses capitais à incidência de crises, enquanto que os fluxos de capitais para investimentos diretos são associados ao crescimento de alguns países.

A difusão de inovações numa sociedade em rede: o estudo de caso dos alimentos transgênicos no Brasil

Throughout the industrial era, the introduction of innovations by companies ¿ new technologies, new products ¿ has followed a downstream diffusion model, that is, from the owners of the conception and production means and governmental agents to the market. These innovations frequently brought great benefits to a part of the population, but ended up creating serious social and environmental unbalances. As this Diffusion of Innovations model became more and more successful outside the developed nations, the greater the reaction of social scientists towards the need of calculating the consequences and implementing measures that could provide an equal distribution of the benefits as of the losses generated by this model. What this work aims to show, illustrated by the controversial episode of the introduction of the genetically modified foods in Brazil, is that nowadays the diffusion model should incorporate the existence of an upstream movement, that is, from the organized and informed civil society onto the corporations and governments, which questions the companies¿ goals and production processes and the efficiency of the regulating institutions that are under the pressure of the global capital flow¿s dynamic. It¿s the consumer-citizen putting himself in as an active participant of strategic importance at the center of the conception and diffusion of innovations¿ processes.

Foreign funding to an emerging market: the Monetary Premium Theory and the Brazilian Case, 1991 - 1998

We develop a framework to explain the private capital flows between the rest of the world and an emerging economy. The model, based on the monetary premium theory, relates an endogenous supply of foreign capitals to an endogenous differential of interest rates; its estimation uses the econometric techniques initiated by Heckman. Four questions regarding the capital flows phenomenon are explored, including the statistical process that governs the events of default and the impact of the probability of default on the interest rate differential. Using the methodology, we analyse the dynamics of foreign capital movements in Brazil during the 1991- 1998 period.

Debt and default in a growth model

This paper presents a small open economy model with capital accumulation and without commitment to repay debt. The optimal debt contract specifies debt relief following bad shocks and debt increase following good shocks and brings first order benefits if the country's borrowing constraint is binding. Countries with less capital (with higher marginal productivity of capital) have a higher debt-GDP ratio, are more likely to default on uncontingent bonds, require higher debt relief after bad shocks and pay a higher spread over treasury. Debt relief prescribed by the optimal contract following the interest rate hikes of 1980-81 is more than half of the debt forgiveness obtained by the main Latin American countries through the Brady agreements.

The influence of the global crisis on the slowdown of the emerging markets

A presente dissertação investiga a relação empírica entre a crise financeira de 2007-2009, a crise da dívida soberana de 2010-2012 e a recente desaceleração dos mercados de capitais nos mercados emergentes. A exposição dos mercados emergentes à crise nos desenvolvidos é quantificada através de um modelo de interdependência de factores. Os resultados mostram que estes sofreram, de facto, um choque provocado por ambas as crises. No entanto, este foi um choque de curta duração enquanto os mercados desenvolvidos ainda lutavam com as consequências resultantes das sucessivas crises financeiras. A análise do modelo mostra ainda que após a crise da divida soberana, enquanto os mercados desenvolvidos iniciam a sua recuperação, os emergentes desaceleram o seu crescimento. De forma a completar a análise do modelo foi efectuado um estudo sobre a influência dos fluxos de capitais entre os mercados emergentes e desenvolvidos na direcção do seu crescimento, revelando que existe uma relação entre estes dois eventos.

The BRICS: some historical experiences, growth challenges and opportunities

The acronym BRICS was a fad among the media and global investors. Now, the acronym sounds passé. However, the group of countries remains important, from both political and economic reasons. They have a large aggregate size, 28% of the global GDP and 42% of the world’s population, high growth potential due to the current significant misallocation of resources and relatively low stock of human capital, structural transformation is in progress and one of them, China, is taking steps to become a global power and a challenger to the US dominance. This paper provides a brief overview of the five economies, Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. We focus on some aspects of their history, the Chinese initiatives in international finance and geopolitical strategic moves, their growth experience and structural transformation over the last 35 years, trade and investment integration into the global economy and among themselves, the growth challenges faced by their economies and the potential gains to the Brazilian economy from a stronger integration with the other BRICS. In association with its efforts to be a global power, China aims to become a major player in global finance and to achieve the status of global currency for the renminbi, which would be the first currency of an emerging economy to attain such position. Despite the similarities, the BRICS encompass very diverse economies. In the recent decades, China and India showed stellar growth rates. On the other hand, Brazil, Russia and South Africa have expanded just in line with global output growth with the Russian economy exhibiting high volatility. China is by far the largest economy, and South Africa the smallest, the only BRICS economy with a GDP lower than US$ 1 trillion. Russia abandoned communism almost 25 years ago, but reversed many of the privatizations of 90’s. China is still ruled by communism, but has a vibrant private sector and recently has officially declared market forces to play a dominant role in its economy. Brazil, Russia and South Africa are global natural resources powerhouses and commodity exporters while China and India are large commodity importers. Brazil is relatively closed to international trade of goods and services, in marked contrast to the other four economies. Brazil, India and South Africa are dependent on external capital flows whereas China and Russia are capital exporters. India and South Africa have younger populations and a large portion living below the poverty line. Despite its extraordinary growth experience that lifted many millions from poverty, China still has 28% of its population classified as poor. Russia and China have much older populations and one of their challenges is to deal with the effects of a declining labor force in the near future. India, China and South Africa face a long way to urbanization, while Brazil and Russia are already urbanized countries. China is an industrial economy but its primary sector still absorbs a large pool of workers. India is not, but the primary sector employs also a large share of the labor force. China’s aggregate demand structure is biased towards investment that has been driving its expansion. Brazil and South Africa have an aggregate demand structure similar to the developed economies, with private consumption accounting for approximately 70%. The same similarity applies to the supply side, as in both economies the share of services nears 70%. The development problem is a productivity problem, so microeconomic reforms are badly needed to foster long-term growth of the BRICS economies since they have lost steam due a variety of factors, but fundamentally due to slower total factor productivity growth. China and India are implementing ambitious reform programs, while Brazil is dealing with macroeconomic disequilibria. Russia and South Africa remain mute about structural reforms. There are some potential benefits to Brazil to be extracted from a greater economic integration with the BRICS, particularly in natural resources intensive industries and services. Necessary conditions to the materialization of those gains are the removal of the several sources of resource misallocation and strong investment in human capital.

Balance of payments dominance: its implications for macroeconomic policy

This paper defines “balance of payments dominance” as a macroeconomic regime in which the short-term macroeconomic dynamics is essentially determined by external shocks, positive or negative. It argues that this is the predominant regime in emerging and developing countries. Trade shocks play an important role but the major procyclical shocks are associated with boom-bust cycles in external financing. Policy challenges are associated not only with the management of such shocks but also with the need to enhance the space for countercyclical macroeconomic policies, as boom-bust cycles tend to pressure macroeconomic policies to behave in a procyclical way. Under these conditions, the best bet is to design policies to reduce external vulnerabilities through a mix of administered exchange rate policies, very active foreign exchange reserve management, reduced reliance on external borrowing, and macroprudential regulations, including those directly affecting capital flows. Countercyclical fiscal policy can also play a role but face strong economic and political economy challenges.

Balance of payments dominance : its implocations for macroeconomic policy

This paper defines “balance of payments dominance” as a macroeconomic regime in which the short-term macroeconomic dynamics is essentially determined by external shocks, positive or negative. It argues that this is the predominant regime in emerging and developing countries. Trade shocks play an important role but the major procyclical shocks are associated with boom-bust cycles in external financing. Policy challenges are associated not only with the management of such shocks but also with the need to enhance the space for countercyclical macroeconomic policies, as boom-bust cycles tend to pressure macroeconomic policies to behave in a procyclical way. Under these conditions, the best bet is to design policies to reduce external vulnerabilities through a mix of administered exchange rate flexibility, very active foreign exchange reserve management, reduced reliance on external borrowing, and macroprudential regulations, including those directly affecting capital flows. Countercyclical fiscal policy can also play a role but face strong economic and political economy challenges.

Exchange rate management techniques

This briefing note addresses the question: What revisions of financial regulation and financial governance in Brazil are necessary to support Brazilian development? What’s in place and what’s missing? The focus here is a dimension of financial regulation and governance: the regulation of capital flows and of exchange rate operations. The arguments are organized in the following manner. In the next section, we summarize the impacts of th crisis on the emerging-market economies and on the regulation of the international monetary and financial system. The third section discusses the post-crisis dilemmas faced by these economies. Finally, the fourth section presents some policy recommendations for Brazil.

Mercado de trabalho, ocupações e rendimentos: a Região Metropolitana de Natal na década de 1990

The aim of this study is the labour market at Natal Metropolitan Region with emphasis in occupations and incomes that took place at the nineties. The definition of its chronological boundaries passed by verification of existence of evident socio-spatial impacts for output, occupation and income in national economy, with rebounds in all national territory, conditioned by institutional and socio-economical transformations which marked Brazilian insertion to capital flows and commodities globalization movement that took place at the cited decade. It has been shown that such impacts did not distributed themselves equally between diverse spatial levels (great regions, federate unities, municipalities) because of historical specificities in each place in terms of output structures and organization of distinct social agents. Having as its basis the Marxist perspective, it tackled theoretically occupations and incomes, transformations in labour universe occurred at world level, mainly in most urbanized areas, and following that to focus changes occurred in Brazilian society related to the search for competitive insertion in global economy during the period regarded. Special attention was gave to Natal Metropolitan Region, because it was historically a concentration area for investments, productive structure, people, occupations and incomes generated/appropriated in Rio Grande do Norte State. The basic data sources for research were the demographic Census (micro data) made by the Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística (IBGE) intending to present the structure and the labour market dynamics, having as basis: 1) traditional indicators about labour market; 2) sectors of economic activities and 3) social positions and classes segments. One of the purposes is the demonstration that occupations and incomes keep relation with the restructuring which occurred in each specific sector during the period. Other purpose is to make explicit the factors which bear the participation of distinct segments in production or service execution that make possible the different participation in income distribution. Results are revealing the increasin precariousness in labour market, enlargement of occupations in tertiary sector and greater concentration of average incomes in the social segments which were owners of the greatest capital allowances between residents in Natal Metropolitan Region during the nineties

Preliminary Overview of the Economies of Latin America and the Caribbean 1999

Includes bibliography

Preliminary Overview of the Economies of Latin America and the Caribbean 2006

Includes bibliography

Foreign Direct Investment in Latin America and the Caribbean 2008

Includes bibliography