Report on Brazil

Abstract

This essay is an empirical contribution to the study of the effects of inflation on monetary policy, as based on the Brazilian experience throughout the 1964–73 period. Its fundamental purpose is to provide a brief introduction to and analysis of the inflation factors as well as of the steps which have been taken in Brazil with a view to holding down the rate of increase of domestic prices, whilst concurrently propitiating the conditions capable of ensuring the country’s socio-economical development. The concurrence of these goals, although apparently conflicting with one another, has undoubtedly posed a challenge to the orthodox articles of faith of the economic theory which had prevailed till then, and according to which deflation would have been the sole process capable of containing and neutralising the outburst of inflation.