The Money Market

The Brazilian money market has developed rapidly since the early 1970s. In part this development can be attributed to the strenuous efforts of public sector and private sector agencies to promote the ‘open market’. During the latter half of the 1970s especially, the Ministry of Finance operated in a most intelligent way in sponsoring legislation aimed at financial market development. Nevertheless problems appeared, and progress was hampered. At times prices surged ahead of projected inflation rates, yielding investors negative real returns in some money market assets. Persistent inflation placed a premium on shortening the maturities of money market instruments, as a defence tactic. Parallel shortenings of wages contracts and other patterns of price adjustment soon followed, magnifying tendencies towards market disequilibrium.