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Brazil 's Economic Impact On Brazil

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1. Background

Brazil has always been a volatile economy, and quite a challenge for the Central Bank to manage. In the 90s, Brazil’s currency, heavily discredited due to a high inflation (which almost hit an annual rate of 7,000% in 1990) was anchored to the US dollar, to import credibility, aiming at stabilizing prices. This also indexed prices to the US dollar, causing inflation to rise whenever the US dollar rose. On top of that, Brazil has always had a savings glut which has traditionally been financed by foreign investors. As such, until 2003, whenever there was a global confidence crisis, investors would withdraw funds from Brazil, and the Central Bank would raise interest rates to convince investors to keep their money in Brazil. This dynamic created a vicious cycle, as higher interest rates would cause investments to be more expensive when risk aversion increased, contributing to the volatility of long-term investments in the Brazilian economy.

After 2003, the newly elected left-wing government implemented one of the best fiscal surplus efforts in Brazilian history(Exhibit I), bringing debt (Exhibit A) down significantly while nominating a very hawkish Central Bank Governor (Henrique Meirelles) who tamed inflation (Exhibit B) and built a significant amount of international credibility, unrelated to the US dollar. This broke the aforementioned cycle, as now local contracts would start to be priced in Brazilian Real, and the credibility brought with it confidence

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