The balance-of-payment crisis literature can offer the basis to understand the current economic turmoil in Brazil. According to the author's calculations, the real exchange rate requires a 15% to 20% devaluation so as to assure that the intertemporal balance-of-payments constraint is not...

The paper develops a model of seigniorage in an open economy, linking inflation, the government budget and the external balance. It introduces financial markets and interest rates in the traditional Cagan style model of inflationary dynamics and it evaluates the experiences of Brazil and Mexico....