FROM its headquarters in Brasília, a sterile, technocratic city, Brazil’s federal government doles out money for health, education, generous pensions and artistic awards, among other things. Over the past two decades, this spending has grown by more than 185% in real terms. Over the next 20 years, its growth will be zero.
That, at least, is the intention of a constitutional amendment passed this week by Brazil’s Senate. The measure, which allows federal spending (excluding interest payments and transfers to states and municipalities) to grow no faster than inflation, is an unusually ambitious example of a fiscal rule: a quantitative limit on budget-making, which lasts beyond a single year and perhaps beyond a single government.
The best known, and least loved, fiscal rule is the euro area’s stability and growth pact. But such rules are also now common among emerging economies. According to the IMF’s latest count, 56 developing countries in 2014 had rules of some kind, including 15, like Brazil, that impose limits on the growth of public spending.
The reasons so many emerging-market governments choose to limit their fiscal...Continue reading
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