摘要：Brazil has come a long way over the last 15 years or
so. Different administrations have maintained and
built on a macroeconomic framework combining
inflation targeting, a flexible exchange rate and
rules-based fiscal management. This policy setting
has served the country well (see Table 1). It has
paved the way for a gradual stabilisation of government
indebtedness, which has allowed for a countercyclical
response to the slowdown in activity
brought about by the global crisis of 2008–09 in an
environment of reasonably low and stable inflation.
Structural reforms during the 1990s, not least to
liberalise the country’s trade and investment
regimes and to make regulations in product markets
and network industries more pro-competition,
have yielded important productivity gains and alleviated
several structural impediments to faster
growth. Good policies have
been essential, but external conditions
have also been supportive.
Brazil benefited from a stable
global economy and rising
commodity prices during most
of the 2000s. Equally importantly,
the benefits of strong
growth are being shared more
equally across social groups,
leading to an improvement in
Brazil’s notoriously skewed
income distribution.
