Abertura financeira, fluxos de capitais e crescimento econômico: análise empírica para o Brasil

Abstract

The goal of this dissertation is to perform a theoretical and empirical review of the relationship between financial openness, capital flows and economic growth. And, principally, make a historical reconstruction of financial openness and behavior of capital flows to Brazil, and perform an econometric investigation on the relationship between financial openness, capital flows and economic growth for Brazil in the period 1970- 2011. The theoretical and empirical review conducted in Chapter 1 highlights the lack of theoretical and empirical consensus on the relationship between financial openness, capital flows and economic growth. Chapter 2 presents the Brazilian experience in financial liberalization and capital flows in the 1970-2011 period. The analysis of this chapter showed evidence that there was a significant stimulus to financial liberalization evidenced by regulatory frameworks and through financial openness indexes that showed upward trend, especially since 1990. In addition, there was a change in composition and a raising in the level of capital flows, especially since 1990, and from this year onwards there was an increase in the frequency of volatility spikes presented by capital flows. And, in the latter part of this chapter, the analysis of extreme episodes of capital flows (surges, stops, flight e retrenchment) showed that in the period analyzed, such episodes are associated to times of instability of the Brazilian economy and in times of International crises. In chapter 3 an empirical research is conducted on the relationship between financial openness, capital flows and economic growth for Brazil. The evidence found, using an estimation model with Autoregressive Distributed Lags (ARDL) suggest that: i) although the de facto financial openness index does not affect economic growth, the de jure financial openness index negatively affects economic growth in the short and long run; ii) debt flows stimulate economic growth positively in the long run; iii) equity flows negatively affect the Brazilian economic growth in the short run; iv) net inflows of foreign direct investment, other investments, derivatives and total net inflows have no effect on economic growth; v) portfolio investment negatively affects economic growth in the short run and positive in the long run.