Search form

Newsletters

Related blogs to Otaviano Canuto

Nafta at the Crossroads

Otaviano Canuto | Posted : May 22, 2017

The U.S. Senate voted to confirm Robert Lighthizer as United States Trade Representative last week, rounding out President Donald Trump’s cabinet and giving momentum to his trade agenda. At his swearing-in ceremony on May 15, Ambassador Lighthizer predicted that President Trump would permanently reverse “the dangerous trajectory of American trade,” and in turn make “U.S. farmers, ranchers and workers richer and the country safer.” This policy shift will begin in earnest in the coming weeks, when Lighthizer meets with congressional trade leaders to discuss the administration’s plan to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). 

Comments

Brazil’s Pension Reform Proposal is Necessary and Socially Balanced

Otaviano Canuto | Posted : April 20, 2017

Last week the World Bank released a Staff Note (2017) analyzing the pension reform proposal sent last December by Brazil’s Federal Government to Congress. It concludes that (p.16, our emphasis):

“… the proposed pension reform in Brazil is necessary, urgent if Brazil is to meet its spending rule, and socially balanced in that the proposal mostly eliminates subsidies received under the current rules by formal sector workers and civil servants who belong to the top 60 percent of households by income distribution.” 

Comments

Beyond the Ballot: Turkey’s Economy at the Crossroads

Otaviano Canuto | Posted : April 03, 2017

Turkey has been approaching a crossroads for some time now. Soon enough it will have to choose a direction.

On April 16, 2017 Turks will vote in a referendum on President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s proposed constitutional amendment that would shift the country’s power center from a parliamentary system to a presidential one. 

Comments

Colombia: Getting Peace, Getting Growth

Otaviano Canuto | Posted : March 23, 2017

Colombia is a country of incredible contrast: known to be one of the places on earth where people feel happiest, it is also one of the most unequal and for many decades, a country immersed in a protracted conflict. Despite the latter - and here is the starkest contrast - Colombia has recently succeeded in reducing poverty and building the foundations for sustainable growth and prosperity.

The Santos administration has delivered on two of its main promises: sign a peace agreement with the FARC guerrilla and get approved a significant structural tax reform. We approach here why both are expected to become strong pillars to help keep the growth-cum-poverty-reduction momentum of the last decades. 

Comments

The Brazilian Debt Hangover

Otaviano Canuto | Posted : January 25, 2017

In previous pieces, we have analyzed the run up to the still-ongoing Brazilian recession as a combination of factors. Given an “anemia” of productivity increases, an appetite for public spending without prioritization led to a condition of fiscal “obesity”. The external factors that provided for a boom in the new millennium, notwithstanding underlying vulnerabilities, have dissipated. The economic policy adopted as a response to the growth decline aggravated those vulnerabilities. On top of those, a disruption of existing large domestic corporate structures followed broad corruption investigations (Canuto, 2016a) (Canuto, 2016b) (Canuto, 2016c). 

Comments

Mr. Trump: Can You Deliver it?

Otaviano Canuto | Posted : November 15, 2016

U.S. assets reacted in a see-saw fashion to Donald Trump’s victory. Stock futures first dove deeply before climbing up to strong gains as investors developed a view on what kind of economic policy president-elect Trump is likely to pursue. They seem to be pricing in an expectation of higher growth and inflation, as well as an earlier Federal Reserve exit from ultra-low interest rates and from holding U$ 4.45 trillion of Treasury bonds.

Comments

The Global Economy Remains Unbalanced

Otaviano Canuto | Posted : November 04, 2016

Discussions around large current account imbalances among systemically relevant economies as a threat to the stability of the global economy faded out in the aftermath of the global financial crisis. More recently, some signs of a possible resurgence of rising imbalances have brought back attention to the issue. We argue here that, while not a threat to global financial stability, the resurgence of these imbalances reveals a sub-par performance of the global economy in terms of foregone product and employment.

Comments

A Straitjacket to Help Brazil Fight Fiscal Obesity

Otaviano Canuto | Posted : October 14, 2016

Brazil’s GDP contraction since mid-2014 has multiple non-fiscal roots - Canuto (2016a; 2014) – but it has morphed into an unsustainable fiscal trajectory (Canuto, 2016b). Dealing with the latter has become a precondition for full economic recovery and the Brazilian government has submitted to Congress a constitutional amendment bill mandating a public spending cap for the next 20 years. This piece considers how the Brazilian landscape evolved toward such a precipice and why additional reforms – particularly on pensions - will have to be implemented to make the spending cap feasible.

Comments

Pages

Pages