MODELO INTERTEMPORAL DA CONTA CORRENTE: EVIDÊNCIAS PARA O BRASIL

The paper uses the procedure developed first by Campbell (1987) to test, for the Brazilian economy, the proposition that the balance of the current account is negatively related to the present value of the future changes of the GDP net of the investment and consumption of the government. Within the framework of intertemporal choice transitory shocks should affect the current account since the agents use credit or give loans in the international capital market to smooth the consumption pattern. On the contrary, when the shocks are permanent the agents adjust to a new consumption level and the effect on the current account is small. This means that the model should adjusts fairly well in countries with short run fluctuations. The empirical results of this work suggest that the present value of the future GDP path is able to explain the behavior of the quarter and annual Brazilian current account giving support to the model of intertemporal choice optimization.