A IMPORTÂNCIA DOS FUNDAMENTOS NOS RATINGS SOBERANOS BRASILEIROS, 1994-2002

The international financial crises of the 1990s rose doubts on the usefulness of sovereign ratings. The present paper has two aims: identify whether sovereign ratings can be predicted using a small set of macroeconomic fundamentals; and test whether sovereign spreads can be predicted by sovereign ratings and/or fundamentals. In the first case, a good adjustment of an ordered logit model can be obtained using the following indicators: Debt/Exports, Public Sector Net Debt, Gov´t Deficit and Current Account. In the second case, when fundamentals (mostly public sector financial conditions) are included, sovereign ratings do not help predict sovereign spreads.