Operações compromissadas: teoria e análise do caso brasileiro (2000 - 2020)

Abstract

This thesis analyzes the repurchase agreement (repo) operations in Brazil between 2000 and 2020. Our investigation aims to understand the reasons for their significant growth during this period. Repo operations in Brazil are the main instrument of monetary policy, and they are undertaken by the Central Bank of Brazil to adjust the liquidity of the economy. Due to their extensive use, repos are the second-largest component of the general government gross debt. As a consequence, they are a huge asset on the balance sheet of banks and investment funds. The particularities of Brazil’s repo operations, their different aspects, and various conditioning factors are not simple and require understanding the operations themselves, monetary policy, debt management, the relationship between the Central Bank and the Treasury, and the peculiarities of the Brazilian financial system. Furthermore, repo operations and their corresponding short-term interest rates significantly increase public debt, given them flow of interest payment emerging from them and going to the repo operations’ holders, which allows them to capitalize their free reserves in the money market. Thus, it is important to assess how this monetary policy instrument has gained relevance and formed, on the one hand, a significant portion of the public debt and, on the other, assets of financial institutions. In this sense, the Central Bank and the National Treasury play an important role due to their monetary impacts so that they synthesize other relationships and factors present in the dynamics of the repo operations.