Conventional wisdom associates the two lost decades of economic stagnation in Brazil to macroeconomic imbalances and excessive budgetary deficits. This paper suggests that, contrary to conventional wisdom, the fiscal crisis of the state in Brazil was the result of the liberalization strategy...

Conventional wisdom about the business cycle in Latin America assumes that monetary shocks cause deviations from the optimal path, and that the triggering factor in the cycle is excess credit and liquidity. Further, in this view the origin of the contraction is ultimately related to the excesses...