Three Perspectives on Brazilian Growth Pessimism

Over the last few years, Brazil’s growth has significantly decelerated. Accompanying this slowdown, a change in commentary on Brazil’s economic future has emerged, and is reflected in a recent ratings downgrade of Brazilian sovereign paper and an overall much-bleaker growth outlook both for the near and medium term. 

In a new 'Economic Premise' note, Philip Schellekens and I examine three contributing factors to this change in sentiment: macroeconomic management, the external environment, and microeconomic fundamentals. Among these, we argue that the relative lack of progress on the microeconomic reform agenda has been far more detrimental to the growth outlook than either the credibility cost of recent macroeconomic management or the negative influence of a less supportive external environment.