This paper explores the link between Brazil's political institutions and its disappointing productivity and growth in recent decades. Although political institutions provide the president with incentives and the instruments to pursue monetary stability and fiscal discipline they simultaneously...

We found that the driving force behind policies in Brazil is the strong set of powers given to the President by the Constitution of 1988. To have strong powers does not mean unbridled powers. Several institutions constrain and check the power of the President, in particular the legislature, the...