Publications /
Policy Brief

Back
Download PDF
The Mist of Central Bank Balance Sheets
Authors
Matheus Cavallari
Otaviano Canuto
February 23, 2017
Related topics: 
Economy
Macroeconomics and regulation
Americas and Carribean
South America

Central banks of large advanced and many emerging market economies have recently gone through a period of extraordinary expansion of balance sheets and are all now possibly facing a transition to less abnormal times. However, the fact that one group is comprised by global reserve issuers and the other by bystanders receiving impacts of the former’s policies carries substantively different implications. Furthermore, using Brazil and the U.S. as examples, we also illustrate how the relationships between central bank and public sector balance sheets have acquired higher levels of complexity, risks and opacity.

RELATED CONTENT

  • Download PDF
    Brazil at a Post-Pandemic Macroeconomic Crossroads
    Authors
    Otaviano Canuto
    Márcio Issao Nakane
    Otaviano Canuto
    December 17, 2020
    Brazil is one of the countries hardest hit by COVID-19. Apart from the dramatic health implications, COVID-19 will also scar the Brazilian economy, including through a jump in its already high public-sector debt-to-GDP ratio in 2020. Moving forward—or not—with structural reforms aimed at lifting private investment will define whether a sustainableor unsustainable—growth-cum-debt trajectory will prevail in the next decade. The extent to which Brazil regains its attractiveness for for ...
  • Don’t Expect Miracles from the Multilaterals
    Authors
    Otaviano Canuto
    September 11, 2020
    Latin American and Caribbean economies need help, but organizations like the IDB are also stretched thin. First appeared at Americas Quarterly With Latin America and the Caribbean potentially facing years of difficulties due to the pandemic and related economic crises, attention has shifted to what multilateral institutions like the International Monetary Fund (IMF) might do to help. There’s no doubt they can play a crucial role in preventing another lost decade in the region. But ...
  • Download PDF
    Brazil, South Korea: Two Tales of Climbing an Income Ladder
    Authors
    Otaviano Canuto
    September 3, 2020
    The “middle income trap” may well characterize the experience of Brazil and most of Latin America since the 1980s. Conversely, South Korea maintained its pace of evolution, reaching a high-income status. Such divergence of economic growth can be related to their distinctive performances of domestic accumulation of technological and organizational capabilities. Their different approaches to global value chains and trade globalization reinforced such discrepancy in domestic accumulati ...
  • Download PDF
    Un regard prudent sur les perspectives économiques au-delà catastrophe provoquée par la Covid-19
    Authors
    Uri Dadush
    August 6, 2020
    La COVID-19 a asséné un puissant coup de massue à l’économie mondiale, en combinant une terrible pandémie à un effondrement de la production dû au confinement de la moitié de la population active mondiale. L’incertitude générée par le choc médical et économique paralyse les consommateurs et les investisseurs, et la dispersion des prévisions économiques à court terme est plus grande qu’elle ne l’a jamais été dans l’histoire moderne, environ six fois plus que lors de la grande crise f ...
  • Download PDF
    Capitaliser sur les « bonnes réputations »
    Authors
    Fathallah Oualalou
    June 24, 2020
    La réputation, concept majeur s’il en est, est un indicateur de l’estime accordée à une personne physique mais aussi à une entreprise ou encore à une entité étatique. Constituée d’une somme de perceptions, elle est la résultante globale de l’ensemble d’images, d’appréciations des actions et comportements de celles-ci. Ainsi, la bonne réputation d’un gouvernement est déterminée et mesurée par son aptitude à faire face aux épreuves que traverse le pays, à affronter les bouleversements ...
  • Download PDF
    The Global Challenges of Illicit Financial Flows
    Authors
    Seleman Kitenge
    March 30, 2020
    Illicit financial flows (IFFs) have become a serious threat to the attainment of global development goals. On February 28th, 2020, the President of the United Nations General Assembly, Tijjani Muhammad-Bande, and the President of ECOSOC, Mona Juul, have announced a high-level panel on international financial accountability, transparency, and integrity (FACTI) as a means to address this challenge, which inhibits financing for the Sustainable Development Goals. This paper provides an ...
  • How Coronavirus Poses New Risks to Latin America's Sputtering Economies
    Authors
    Otaviano Canuto
    February 24, 2020
    The outbreak in China has already affected economic sectors in Latin America. Is there more to come? China’s economy has come to a sudden stop. Large parts of the country remain in shutdown mode after the end of the Lunar New Year holiday, with national passenger traffic declining by 85% on the Wednesday after the break compared to 2019.   Outside of China, the impact of the slowdown has already been felt, with companies like Apple and Land Rover warning of lower production, as pa ...
  • Global Economic Outlook: is the Glass Half Full or Half Empty ?
    Authors
    Hamza Saoudi
    Oumayma Bourhriba
    December 19, 2019
    Emerging market and developing economies: Engine of the global economic growth despite some vulnerabilities1 After a long spell of slow growth post-crisis, the global economy’s recovery was mainly supported by the improvement of emerging markets and developing economies growth. However, this recovery is subject to wide-ranging uncertainties and is now in some danger. According to the IMF, the global economic growth is expected to fall to 3 % in 2019, the lowest level since 2008. Th ...
  • The IMF, Argentina and Ecuador: Have Lessons Been Learned?
    Authors
    Otaviano Canuto
    December 2, 2019
    Following the global financial crisis of 2007-08, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) went through a period of self-examination. The old joke that its acronym stood for “It’s Mostly Fiscal” bothered some of its leaders, who believed the organization needed to focus less on austerity and more thoroughly consider issues such as inequality, poverty reduction and gender equality when making loans and other key decisions. There was talk of a “new IMF” that had learned from its old mist ...
  • Argentina’s Half-Baked Adjustment Has Not Worked
    Authors
    Otaviano Canuto
    August 19, 2019
    Argentina’s peso tumbled and stocks plunged after last Sunday’s primary elections. The perception of a likely victory of President Macri’s opponents – Alberto Fernandez, and running mate, Christina Fernandez de Kirchner - has sparked a new shift in investor preferences away from peso assets, pressures on the exchange rate, and hikes on sovereign spreads. Unless fears of a return to policies prevailing before Macri are assuaged, the market rout tends to deepen as a negative feedback ...