This article investigates the process of capital account liberalization that has been in place in Brazil since the early 1990s. Two independent indices are used as proxies to measure the behavior of the economy's external sector, examining both notional (ICC) and effective (IAF) financial flows to and from Brazil. Based on the vector autoregressive (VAR) method, empirical findings support the view that the links between financial liberalization and economic growth might not be as strong as supposed by mainstream macroeconomic theory.
Financial liberalization; Macroeconomic performance; Capital account; External management; Brazil
