Acessibilidade / Reportar erro

Ocorre um 'Mito Monetário' no Brasil? Um estudo do padrão cíclico de índices de preços nacionais Os autores agradecem os comentários e sugestões dos participantes do Quarto Encontro de Economia do Espírito Santo (IV EEES). Um agradecimento especial a Márcio Nakane e a um parecerista anônimo deste periódico, por fornecerem valiosas sugestões a uma versão anterior do trabalho. Vale a ressalva de que as opiniões aqui contidas não refletem a visão do PPGA -USP, do IJSN ou de algum de seus membros. Também vale a ressalva usual de que os eventuais erros aqui contidos são de inteira responsabilidade dos autores.

Abstract

The behavior of price indexes over cyclical frequencies represents an important judgment criterion for alternative macroeconomic theories. Analysing post-war data, Kydland and Prescott (1990) uncovered a result where prices display a countercyclical pattern, which they termed 'monetary myth', as opposed to prevailing business-cycle theories of the time. The main goal of this paper is to study the cyclical pattern of different price indexes in Brazil during the 1980:01/2013:04 period (quarterly data), trying to verify if a 'monetary myth' is valid in this context. Results obtained show that, in a first moment, there is no defined pattern for prices during the sample period. However, when we split the sample in two sub-periods, before and after the introduction of Plano Real (an stabilization plan), prices display a countercyclical pattern during the first period (1980:01/1994:02) and a procyclical pattern during the second period (1994:03/2013:04). Our results are robust to the utilization of alternative detrending methods, business cycle periodicities, as well as different price indexes. These results are important for showing that significant changes occurred in Brazil's macroeconomic scenario over the last decades.

Keywords
Business cycles; Prices; Brazilian economy

Departamento de Economia; Faculdade de Economia, Administração, Contabilidade e Atuária da Universidade de São Paulo (FEA-USP) Av. Prof. Luciano Gualberto, 908 - FEA 01 - Cid. Universitária, CEP: 05508-010 - São Paulo/SP - Brasil, Tel.: (55 11) 3091-5803/5947 - São Paulo - SP - Brazil
E-mail: estudoseconomicos@usp.br