José Luis Oreiro

Novo-desenvolvimentismo, crescimento econômico e regimes de política macroeconômica

The objective of the present article is to analyse the theoretical foundations of new-developmentism, in particular its conception about the nature of long-run growth and the role of macroeconomic police in the promotion of this catching-up strategy.

Estrutura do setor bancário e o ciclo recente de expansão do crédito: o papel dos bancos públicos federais

This paper aims at analyzing the development of the Brazilian banking sector and the recent credit cycle in Brazil, focusing on the role and performance of state-owned- banks, particularly the large federal banks, BNDES, Banco do Brasil and the CEF. This paper stresses mainly the contra-cyclical role of such banks in the credit market in Brazil, as well as their crucial role in the development of long-term financing in the Brazilian economy (investment financing , rural credit and real estate credit). The emphasis of the study is on the post-Real and the recent credit boom, i.e. during the 2003-2009 period.

A economia brasileira puxada pela demanda agregada

The Brazilian economy pulled by the aggregate demand. This article aims to present the demand-led growth theory and some empirical evidences for a demand-led growth regime in Brazil. First of all, we will do a brief review of the theory of demand led-growth, based in the seminal work of Kaldor (1988), for whom long-run growth is determined by the growth rate of consumption expenditures and the growth rate of exports. Based in the empirical methodology developed by Atesoglu (2002), we run some econometric tests for the hypothesis of demand-led growth for Brazilian economy. The results of such tests shown that near of 85% of GDP growth in Brazil in the period 1991-2005 is explained by variables at the demand side of the economy. Besides that, based in the methodology developed by Ledesma and Thirwall (2002), we shown that natural rate of growth for Brazilian economy is endogenous, increasing during boom times. This means that appears to be no restrictions in the supply side of the economy for a faster growth of Brazilian economy. Finally, we argue that a necessary condition for a sustained growth of Brazilian economy is the adoption of a export-led growth model. For such it is necessary to put an end on the actual over-valuation of real exchange rate.

Acumulação de capital, utilização da capacidade produtiva e inflação: Uma análise a partir de um modelo pós-keynesiano não linear

Capital acumulation, capacity utilization and inflation: an analisys based in a non-linear post-keynesian macrodynamic model - The aim of this article is to analyze the effects of inflation on capital accumulation and on the degree of capacity utilization within the ambit of post Keynesian growth and distribution model in which investment is supposed to be a non-linear (quadratic) function of inflation rate. Within this framework we demonstrate the existence of two short-run equilibrium values for the inflation rate and the degree of capacity utilization. The first equilibrium is characterized by a low degree of capacity utilization and a low inflation rate. The other is characterized by a high degree of capacity utilization and a high inflation rate. These results imply that the conduction of economic stabilization policy is conditioned to the equilibrium position within economy operates. The stability of the long-run equilibrium of the economy at hand is conditional not only to the particular short-run equilibrium position (high or low), but also to the speed of response of monetary policy to divergences between actual and target inflation and to the speed of inflation expectation adjustment to expectational errors. As a corollary of these conclusions, follows that there is no such thing as an optimal economic policy rule that can be used independently of the state of the economy.

Um modelo macrodinâmico pós-keynesiano de simulação

Este artigo apresenta a estrutura e as primeiras simulacoes computacionais de um modelo macrodinâmico uni-setorial que incorpora alguns elementos do enfoque teorico pos-keynesiano. Os elementos incorporados no modelo aqui apresentado sao os seguintes: (i) determinacao do nivel de producao pela demanda efetiva, (ii) existencia de propensoes a poupar diferenciadas com base na classe de rendimentos, (iii) fixacao de precos com base num mark-up sobre os custos diretos unitarios de producao, (iv) determinacao do investimento com base na “teoria dos dois precos” de Minsky, (v) influencia da estrutura de capital das empresas, em especial o seu nivel de endividamento, sobre a decisao de investimento e de fixacao de precos, (vi) determinacao da taxa de inflacao com base no conflito distributivo entre capitalistas e trabalhadores, e (vii) endogenidade da oferta de moeda. As simulacoes computacionais do modelo revelam algumas propriedades importantes da dinâmica capitalista tais como a ocorrencia “crescimento ciclico”, ou seja, flutuacoes irregulares e nao-explosivas da taxa de crescimento do produto real; a estabilidade da taxa de lucro e da distribuicao funcional da renda ao longo do tempo; a manutencao de uma certa capacidade de producao excedente no “longo-prazo”; a ocorrencia de um unico episodio de queda acentuada do nivel de atividade economica ao longo de todo o intervalo de tempo da simulacao, o que esta em consonância com o carater raro das “grandes crises” na historia do capitalismo. Alem disso, as simulacoes computacionais mostram que uma reducao muito acentuada da inflacao num curto periodo de tempo tende a ser acompanhada por uma grande fragilizacao das posicoes financeiras das empresas, a qual, mais cedo ou mais tarde, culmina numa “grande depressao”. Como corolario desse resultado segue-se que o Banco Central deve conduzir a politica monetaria de forma a jamais engendrar quedas muito acentuadas da taxa de inflacao.

Effects of overvaluation and exchange rate volatility over industrial investment: empirical evidence and economic policy proposals for Brazil

The present article aims to analyze the recent behavior of real exchange rate in Brazil and its effects over investment per worker in Brazilian manufacturing and extractive industry. Preliminary estimates presented in the article shows an over-valuation of 48% of real exchange rate in Brazil. The reaction between the level (and volatility) of real exchange rate and investment (per worker) in Brazil is analyzed by means of a panel data econometric model for 30 sectors of Brazilian manufacturing and extractive industry. The empirical results show that the level and volatility of real exchange rate has a strong effect over investment per worker in Brazilian industry. Finally, we conclude the article presenting a proposal for a new macroeconomic regime that aims to produce an acceleration of economic growth of Brazilian economy and, by that, a catching-up process with developed countries.

Metas de inflação, crescimento e estabilidade macroeconômica: uma análise a partir de um modelo pós-keynesiano macrodinâmico não linear

The aim of this paper is to analyze the effects of adopting an inflation targeting regime, in which central banks set the short-term interest rate as a response to deviations of inflation from its target and of output from its potential, over economic growth. To this end, we build a non-linear post-keynesian growth model which allows the existence of more than one short-term equilibrium point. We conclude that maintaining a balanced short-term growth path after exogenous shocks depends largely on fiscal policy. Besides that, there are three possible long-term equilibrium configurations, two of which are inherently unstable. Long-term equilibrium stability of the third configuration depends on how central banks respond to deviations on inflation and output. More precisely, we show that a more cautious behavior from the Central Bank in a manner that it only increases short term interest rates when it is really required to do so could help the economy to have a balanced growth-path in the longrun.

Macroeconomic determinants of bank spread in Latin America: a recent analysis with special focus on Brazil

Latin America has one of the highest interest margins in the world; furthermore, credit to private sector and bank spread are negatively correlated. Brazil, in particular, has one the highest bank spreads in the world – it is even so far the highest one among the Latin American economies. Indeed, despite of the decline in interest rates since mid‐1999, bank spread in Brazil continues to be extremely high in international terms, and in recent years has stood at around 40 percentage points. This paper intends to explore the discussion in the recent literature on bank spread about what determines bank spread in Latin America, with special focus on the Brazilian case, seeking in particular but not exclusively to analyze the macroeconomic determinants of bank spread in recent times.

A relação entre o mercado de dívida pública e a política monetária no Brasil

RESUMO O objetivo deste artigo e discutir e analisar a relevância da divida publica, particularmente de sua duracao, como um importante canal de transmissao da politica monetaria. Procura-se argumentar que a caracteristica do mercado de divida publica no Brasil, fortemente concentrado em titulos pos-fi xados, especialmente em Letras Financeiras do Tesouro, retira parte da efi cacia da politica monetaria. Dado que as LFTs sao titulos com valor de face imune a variacoes na taxa de juros e que aproximadamente metade da divida publica esta indexada a tais titulos, um importante canal de transmissao da politica monetaria, o efeito riqueza, e interrompido. Palavras-chave: politica monetaria; divida publica; titulos publicos

Inconsistency and over-determination in neo-Kaleckian growth models: A note

This short note argues that the canonical neo‐Kaleckian growth model does not yield a balanced growth path due to the absence of an inbuilt mechanism by which desired and actual rates of capital accumulation are equalized. Introducing non‐generating capacity autonomous demand does not solve such inconsistency. Contrary to what Lavoie () claims, we show that the latter is also unable to bring capacity utilization to its normal level. In light of recent contributions (e.g., Nikiforos, ), we suggest that making normal capacity utilization an endogenous variable is an alternative better suited to deal with the issue.