Cesar Rodrigues van der Laan

External financial liberalization and growth in emerging countries: a panel data estimation using a new index (1990-2004)

The 2008 financial crisis and its economic downturn have reignited the fierce debate about the financial liberalization and its implications on economic growth, especially in the realm of the developing countries. In this paper, we focus on this line of research, contributing in two main ways. First, we present an alternative method to measure financial liberalization, based on the same International Monetary Fund (IMF) annual reports most studies currently use as source of data. Second, we use panel data for a group of relevant emerging countries in Latin America and East Asia, including the new proxy in an attempt to test its effects on economic growth during the recent period (1990-2004). The more reliable index has not changed the main consensus on the subject, though, as results are in accordance with the prevalent thesis on the literature, that is, the link between financial liberalization and economic growth might not be as strong as may be supposed in theory. This means the other basic theoretical determinants must instead be observed to spur growth, while countries should observe the Keynesian agenda of stabilizing international finance through the introduction of limits to the free mobility of capital flows, as IMF economists have recently supported.

Os pilares institucionais da política cambial e a industrialização nos anos 1930

The Institutional pillars of the foreign exchange policy and industrialization in Brazil in the 1930s. The 1930s constitute one milestone in the Brazilian economic development, as the accelerated industrialization process has started and became the dominant domestic policy. This paper reviews this period focusing on the institutional changes restructuring exchange transactions, to curb financial flows and balance external payments

On the effectiveness of capital controls during the Great Recession: The Brazilian experience (2007–2013)

ABSTRACT In this study, we analyze the impact in Brazil of a tax on external capital flows called “Imposto Sobre Operações Finaceiras” (IOF), by following data on a monthly basis from 2007 to 2013. Our goal is to determine whether a change in tax legislation can produce significant effects on the pattern of financial inflows from abroad. Using univariate structural models, our results show that changes in the IOF produced structural breaks on foreign portfolio investments.

A estratégia de acumulação de reservas no Brasil no período 1995-2008: uma avaliação crítica

This paper analyses the maintenance of precautionary reserve holdings in Brazil, investigating three interrelated issues. Using one optimization process, an econometric model of the expected effects of this strategy, and on a cost-benefit analysis, the optimal level for international reserves is estimated. Different adequacy measures and model-based simulations offer the same inference about the inadequacy of the Brazilian reserve holdings, which have been maintained at excessive levels since 2008. Furthermore, the econometric exercise does not provide much support for the claim that accumulating high levels of reserves is highly significant in determining sovereign risk and the nations external funding costs, as well as showing that reserves do not reduce exchange rate volatility. It seems, otherwise, to be related to a huge fiscal cost associated with the sterilization policy.

Liberalização financeira externa: investigando alguns efeitos macroeconômicos no Brasil entre 1994 e 2006

This article investigates the process of capital account liberalization that has been in place in Brazil since the early 1990s. Two independent indices are used as proxies to measure the behavior of the economys external sector, examining both notional (ICC) and effective (IAF) financial flows to and from Brazil. Based on the vector autoregressive (VAR) method, empirical findings support the view that the links between financial liberalization and economic growth might not be as strong as supposed by mainstream macroeconomic theory.