Fiscal policy in the context of financialization: insufficient theory and inadequate indicators

Abstract The paper queries the conception of fiscal policy in mainstream macroeconomics. The critics focus on the insufficiency of this approach to capture the relations established between the state and financialized capitalism and on the inadequacy of the indicators used to assess fiscal policy. In a pattern of capital accumulation in which the asset management and the financial wealth valuation overcome economic flows, fiscal policy, far beyond dealing with tax collection and real spending, must manage the financial stocks and their yields. Using the Brazilian economy as the case study, the paper shows that the financial and patrimonial management of the federal state is compelled to have greater impacts on fiscal balance than those related to public spending and collection. In a sense, the chosen fiscal indicators do not express the real dynamics of fiscal accounts and their impacts on the economy.