BRAZILIANS who remember the hyperinflationary 1980s cheered the news on April 7th that prices rose by just 4.57% in the year to March. Inflation has not come that close to the central bank’s target of 4.5% in seven years. In a fitting coincidence, on the same day one of the architects of the Real Plan, which tamed inflation in 1994, donned the gold-and-green livery of the “immortals”, as members of the Brazilian Academy of Letters are known.
Edmar Bacha is just the third economist to join the august group, whose 40 lifetime appointments are reserved for towering intellectuals and the finest wordsmiths. His election last November (by members of the academy) was one of the most contentious in its 120-year history. It may also be a sign of the times.
Besides wrestling with inflation, Mr Bacha was head of the statistics office and the state development bank. He later became an investment banker. He has a way with words. In “Fable for technocrats”, an essay published in 1974, he described Brazil as “Belíndia”, a tiny, rich Belgium surrounded by a vast, poor India. In “End of inflation in the kingdom of Lizarb”—where “everything is back to...Continue reading
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