This paper argues that the effects of the food price crisis of 2007-08 put pressure on two variables that are of central importance to the Brazilian government: inflation and social inclusion. We describe how political institutions in Brazil in the past 25 years have given rise to a...

This paper models the process of regulatory agency design, focusing on the role of credibility. The government is constrained in the sense that it must create regulatory institutions that allow it to commit to not administratively expropriate investors. The model explains both the preference of...