Aprendendo as licoes da estagnacao

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Now the good times are over. Latin America’s economy is screeching to a halt; it managed growth of just 1.3% last year. This year’s figure will be only 0.9%, reckons the IMF, which would mark the fifth successive year of deceleration (see chart 1). Not only has this surprised most forecasters, but Latin America has slowed more than any other emerging region. Many reckon it now faces a “new normal” of growth of just 2-3% a year. That would jeopardise recent social gains; already the fall in poverty has halted.

So what has gone wrong? Did Latin America squander its boom? An immediate explanation for the slowdown is the fall in the region’s terms of trade—the ratio of the price of its exports to the price of its imports. Having risen threefold between 2003 and 2011, commodity prices fell somewhat thereafter before plunging sharply last year. Since 2011 investment in the region’s economies has slowed; the IMF finds that it is closely correlated with commodity prices. Financial markets have responded accordingly, with the region’s main currencies depreciating by an average of 20% against the dollar since mid-2014 and most stockmarkets in the doldrums. The impending hike in the United States Federal Reserve’s policy rate will raise borrowing costs.

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