Capital account regulation in Brazil: An assessment of the 2009-2013 period

ABSTRACT Brazil was one of the emerging countries that had a stronger trend of currency appreciation from the 2nd quarter of 2009 to July 2011. Under this context that can be understood the implementation of capital account regulation (CAR) after 2009, which was complemented with another kind of regulation, the so-called FX Derivatives Regulation (FXDR). This paper shows that only when Brazilian government adopted these two kinds of regulations simultaneously, the policy effectiveness increased in terms of protecting the Brazilian currency from upward pressures. Brazilian experience also highlights that it is not possible to establish a hierarchy between temporary instruments to manage capital flows and permanent prudential measures, as supported by the IMF current approach.

摘要 2009年第二季度至2011年7月期间，巴西是新兴经济体中货币升值趋势更为显著的国家之一。在此背景下，巴西于2009年后实施了资本账户管制（Capital Account Regulation, CAR），并配套推出了另一项管制措施——即所谓的外汇衍生品管制（FX Derivatives Regulation, FXDR）。本文研究表明，唯有巴西政府同步实施这两项管制措施时，政策在抵御巴西货币升值压力方面的有效性才得以提升。巴西的实践经验同时也凸显出，无法按照国际货币基金组织（International Monetary Fund, IMF）当前的政策思路，对临时性资本流动管理工具与永久性审慎措施进行层级划分。