Since World War II the importance of economic policy did not stop increasing. Even conservative economists do not deny its relevance. But its economic and political limits are very clear, beginning with a basic limit: the principle of rationality. The author discusses these limits using his personal experience.

This paper offers a discussion of the proposal of securitization of external debt in the context of Brazilian economy. After analyzing many questions involved, the paper presents a specific proposal of conversion of external debt into bonds with long-term maturity and fixed interest rate. This proposal should reduce the external transfer of real resources and decrease the outstanding of external debt and diminish the vulnerability of Brazilian economy to an increase in the interest rate as well. The paper presents also a simulation of Brazilian Balance of Payments and key macroeconomics variables for the period 1988/92 in order to evaluate the proposal.

The paper deals with three aspects of the Argentine-Brazil agreement. First, it shows that this agreement does not represent a movement towards bilateralism, but it is an effort towards the global strengthening of Latin American economy. Secondly, it tries to demonstrate that there is a considerable amount of potential trade to be exploited between the two economies. Finally, it points out that the removal of trade barries will lead to an improvement of the pattern of industrial organization within both economies.

The relations between Argentina and Brazil suffered a major change since 1985, with the start of a new integration project. Although it has been a bilateral iniciative, dais project may have great importance, in the long term, for all Latin America. Its goals are quite broad, involving economic, political, strategic and cultural variables. Another basic aspect of dais project is its commitment with the democratization process of both countries. The successful impact of the argentine-Brazilian project has been due to the fact that it is mainly BD iniciative of Alfonsin’s and Sarney’s governments. Its dura-tion however depends on the economic and political stability in both countries, as well as the active participation of their private sectors.

This article tries to show some of the potential problems that appear with the adoption of the automatic mechanism of wage increase known as “trigger point indexation”. Theories about distributive conflict are the basis to describe the way the inflationary dynamic behaves in a system of wage periodical indexation, which is compared with the “trigger point” system. The main conclusion is that if Govern-ment don’t manage to control prices strictly, the menace of an acceleration of inflation is considerable. In this context, the article discusses also some of the differents sceneries for the Brazilian economy that may be foreseen for the next future as a consequence of the conflicts observed now.

The article touches the matter of the diverse costs on the Brazilian Public Federal Administration — fiscal, monetary, of the public enterprises, and of the social welfare institutions — the procedure for the elaboration, discussion, approval and — above all — execution and respective evaluation. It tries to show clearly the dissociation between the cost and planning also with the lack of objectiveness in establishing rules for the distribution of the funds. In parallel position the fragility of the systems of accompaniment and control unviables the accomplishment of the purposes, conventionally expressed in the proposition, and it doesn’t constitute for the reformulation of the principles and methods of work adopted until now.

The purpose of this paper is to review the stabilization experience implemented in Brazil in 1986. The first section discusses the theoretical foundations of the so-called Cruzado Plan. A brief review of the performance of the Brazilian economy is presented in the following section. as well as the main aspects of the stabilization program. The final section analyses the implementation of the Cruzado Plan, its problems and the management of economic policy during 1986 and the first months of 1987.