GlobalSource Partners | Country Insights

There were expectations that the Copom Minutes would help explain the evident gaps present in the statement released after last week’s meeting. There was no shortage of effort in this direction, but the results were not the best. Recapping, both in the statement itself and even more clearly in...

More of the same

BRAZIL ECONOMICS · Report · 22 Jun 2026

Public debt remains on an upward trajectory, and, given the current fiscal policy, we see no signs of reversal. Stabilizing it requires a substantial primary surplus, far removed from the deficit the government is expected to deliver this year and next. To keep debt to GDP constant over the long ...

Cards on the table

BRAZIL ECONOMICS · Report · 18 Jun 2026

In a longer-than-usual meeting, the Copom ultimately decided on another 0.25 p.p. reduction in the Selic rate target, to 14.25% per year, as expected by the market and by us. That said, although the Copom’s assessment, expressed in the statement released after the meeting, is unequivocally more h...

Living on borrowed time

BRAZIL ECONOMICS · Report · 15 Jun 2026

The economic outlook changed considerably over the second quarter of the year. Much of this, of course, reflected the depth and duration of the geopolitical crisis in the Strait of Hormuz. If the U.S. government expected the Iranian regime to capitulate quickly, particularly after eliminating its...

The Mencken theorem

BRAZIL ECONOMICS · Report · 09 Jun 2026 · 2 responses

The persistence of high interest rates has led to proposals to raise Brazil’s inflation target, currently set at 3%. It is argued that, due to inflation inertia, still a legacy of the hyperinflationary period, the Central Bank faces difficulties in reducing the Selic rate. This idea is mistaken. ...

Of mountains and mice

BRAZIL ECONOMICS · Report · 08 Jun 2026

A new round of U.S. tariffs on Brazilian products, if implemented, should have only a modest macroeconomic effect. We estimate that the measures would reduce Brazilian exports by between US$0.8 billion and US$2.8 billion, a small amount compared with the approximately US$360 billion exported annu...

Synthesis of the Brazilian Economy

BRAZIL ECONOMICS · Report · 01 Jun 2026

Weak governments, captured by group interests and incapable of confronting financial innovations — such as cryptocurrencies and fintechs — with proper regulation, have fostered the widespread growth of organized crime in Brazil and Latin America. The new phase, initiated after the “blackout” in p...

High consumption, low productivity: the Central Bank’s dilemma

BRAZIL ECONOMICS · Report · 29 May 2026

GDP grew in line with expectations, 1.1%, far stronger than observed during the second half of 2025, when the economy remained stagnant. From the supply perspective, the highlights were once again agriculture and the mineral extraction to which we can also add construction. Although we include th...

On the wrong side

BRAZIL ECONOMICS · Report · 26 May 2026

At the beginning of the month, the federal government announced Novo Desenrola Brasil, a program aimed at household debt restructuring through discounts and lower interest rates. The program, however, is not isolated and is now part of a broader set of measures intended to stimulate consumption t...

The name of the rose

BRAZIL ECONOMICS · Report · 26 May 2026

We recently published a report in which we argued that inertia in inflation expectations results, at least in part, from the Central Bank's own policy stance. By adopting a strategy that favors the slow convergence of inflation to the target, that is, over a period longer than the so-called "rele...

The weight of inertia

BRAZIL ECONOMICS · Report · 18 May 2026

The inflation scenario has been marked by both the oil shock, which pushed up inflation expectations even at longer horizons, and resilient economic activity featuring a still tight labor market. Meanwhile, by extending the horizon for inflation convergence to the target, the Central Bank has con...

For Whom the Bell Tolls?

BRAZIL ECONOMICS · Report · 14 May 2026

Copom rightly expresses discomfort with the rise in long-term inflation expectations in response to the oil shock, whose effects should dissipate before affecting inflation at more distant horizons. We argue in this report that this pattern results from the Central Bank’s stance since 2021, marke...

With a little help from my (not so close) friends

BRAZIL ECONOMICS · Report · 11 May 2026

Brazilian trade balance should benefit considerably from the oil shock, given the country’s position as a net exporter of this product. Our projections indicate that the oil trade surplus could approach USD $56 billion in 2026. Moreover, there is a deepening trade relationship with China and the ...

The compass, the map and the fog

BRAZIL ECONOMICS · Report · 07 May 2026

We believe that the reading of the most recent edition of the Copom Minutes was dominated by one single question: will the easing cycle, pardon, the calibration of the Selic continue, or will the BC be forced to end it, or pause it, after only modest two cuts of 0.25 p.p. each? Our understandi...

Inflation's fuel is not just fuel prices

BRAZIL ECONOMICS · Report · 04 May 2026

The inflation outlook is shaped by both the external shock associated with the situation in the Middle East and the deterioration of underlying inflation measures. The acceleration of core inflation and underlying services, combined with broader diffusion, signals that price pressures reflect per...