O sistema de crédito internacional e a instabilidade financeira dos países da periferia capitalista

The paper assesses the consequences of the structure of the international credit system upon the balance of payments of the periphery countries, in the form of increasing chronic current account deficit, under conditions of liberalized external relations. The attempt has been made to demonstrate that the trade balance tends to be in deficit and that a continuous surplus cannot be generated by the inflow of foreign capital of any sort. They are, on the contrary, one of the causes of the deficit and cause it to increase. Since these features are the outcome of the normal working of market forces, the solution would seem to be to restrain the latter through defensive regulation of foreign transactions, which is in effect supported by ample and recent historical evidence. However, regulation cannot be relied upon as a long run solution, since the chronic deficit of the periphery countries derives from a structural backwardness, as expressed in low levels of productivity. The effective solution would consist, in theory, of a structural upgrading of the economy, supported by offensive regulation, but the historical viability of such a process is doubtfull.