Event Summary
The Peterson Institute held an event to discuss the fundamentals underlying Brazil's worsening economic situation on September 9, 2015. PIIE Visiting Fellow Monica de Bolle and Senior Fellow Jeffrey J. Schott presented new takes on some of the longer-term drivers of Brazil's current macroeconomic and political difficulties, including the role of Brazil's development bank BNDES. Alberto Ramos, Goldman Sachs, participated on the discussion panel to share his views.
Monica de Bolle joined the Peterson Institute for International Economics as a visiting fellow early this year. Her insightful new Institute Policy Brief, Do Public Development Banks Hurt Growth? Evidence from Brazil, will be released at this meeting. She is professor of macroeconomics at the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro (on leave), and managing partner of Galanto | MBB Consultants, a macroeconomics advisory firm. Previously she was a director of the Institute for Economic Policy Research (IEPE/Casa das Garças), an independent think tank based in Rio de Janeiro. She began her career as an economist at the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
Jeffrey J. Schott has been with the Institute since 1983. He is the author of numerous studies on trade policy, economic integration in the Americas and Asia, and economic sanctions. He has led the Institute's research in the area of bilateral and regional free trade agreements, including his 2001 study, Free Trade between Korea and the United States?, which laid the groundwork for Korea-US Free Trade Agreement (KORUS). Since January 2003, he has been a member of the Trade and Environment Policy Advisory Committee of the US government. He is also a member of the State Department's Advisory Committee on International Economic Policy and chairs its sanctions subcommittee.
Alberto Ramos is head of the Latin America economic research team in Goldman Sachs' Global Investment Research Division. He was previously a senior economist at the IMF and worked with Argentina, Brazil, and Turkey, researching issues related to debt sustainability, fiscal-monetary dominant regimes, and sovereign debt restructurings.
Event Materials
Presentations: Monica de Bolle [pdf] | Alberto Ramos [pdf]