A further deterioration of the Brazilian fiscal reaction in view of COVID-19

Abstract

The fiscal reaction function measures how the government’s primary surplus
reacts to the evolution of public debt. Campos and Cysne (2019b) observed that the
reaction function has been almost steadily decreasing since 2012 and it has turned from
positive to negative values in 2017 and 2018. In the subsequent period, the improvement
of some economic indicators led the fiscal reaction to a recovery. Nevertheless, in 2020,
with the advent of COVID-19, health spending and emergency aids caused a sharp fiscal
deterioration, leading the fiscal reaction coefficient to assume, again, negative values.

JEL Classification: H30; H60; E50.