Whither Emerging Markets Foreign Exchange Reserves

After a exponential rise in foreign exchange reserves accumulation by emerging markets from 2000 onwards, the tide seems to have turned south since mid-2014. Changes in capital flows and commodity prices have been major factors behind the inflection, with the new direction expected to remain, given the context of the global economy going forward. Although it is too early to gauge whether the on-going relative unwinding of such reserves defenses will lead to vulnerability in specific emerging markets, the payoff from strengthening domestic policies has broadly increased.

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Gender equality and economic growth in Brazil: A long-run analysis

This paper studies the long-run impact of policies aimed at fostering gender equality on economic growth in Brazil. The first part provides a brief review of gender issues in the country. The second part presents a gender-based, three-period OLG model that accounts for women’s time allocation between market work, child rearing, human capital accumulation, and home production. Bargaining between spouses depends on relative human capital stocks, and thus indirectly on access to infrastructure. The model is calibrated and various experiments are conducted, including investment in infrastructure, a reduction in gender bias in the market place, and a composite pro-growth, pro-gender reform program. The analysis showed that fostering gender equality, which may partly depend on the externalities that infrastructure creates in terms of women’s time allocation and bargaining power, may have a substantial impact on long-run growth in Brazil.

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Wilson Center – Rousseff’s Uphill Battle to Revive Brazil’s Economy: What Brazilians Think of the President’s New Austerity Plan

  Rousseff’s Uphill Battle to Revive Brazil’s Economy: What Brazilians Think of the President’s New Austerity Plan https://youtu.be/s0dDATVeDsw Confronted with a stagnant economy, President Dilma Rousseff has shifted gears and embarked on…

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Financial Times – The cost of Brazil’s closed economy

Brazil’s is an unusually closed economy as measured by trade penetration, with exports plus imports equal to just 27.6 per cent of GDP in 2013. As the potential productivity gains from participation in global production networks increase, so does the opportunity cost of Brazil’s failure to open its economy.

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