Via portugalcontemporaneo cheguei a este artigo sobre a crise russa de 1998 (A Case Study of a Currency Crisis: The Russian Default of 1998). Para além dessa perspectiva histórica, inclui também um apanhado sobre as diferentes abordagens para este tipo de crise cambial que surgiram ao longo dos tempos:
“The key contribution of the first-generation model is its identification of the tension between domestic fiscal policy and the fixed exchange rate regime.
While the first-generation models help explain some of the fundamentals that cause currency crises, they are lacking in two key aspects. First, the standard first-generation model requires agents to suddenly increase their estimates of the likelihood of a devaluation (perhaps through an increase in expected inflation). Second, they do not explain why the currency crises spread to other countries.”
“They [Second-Generation Models] estimate that a speculative attack somewhere in the world increases the probability of a domestic currency crisis by about 8 percent. The spillover from one currency crisis into neighboring countries can be attributed to a number of different scenarios(…)
Expectations can rise either because countries are neighboring trade partners or because they have similar macroeconomic policies or conditions (e.g., high unemployment or high government debt).
Since the crises are self-fulfilling, these expectations make the likelihood of devaluation increase as well. Lastly, a devaluation can be transmitted via world financial markets to other susceptible countries.”
“They [Third-Generation Models] suggest that a currency crisis is brought on by a combination of high debt, low foreign reserves, falling government revenue, increasing expectations of devaluation, and domestic borrowing constraints”
A propósito de uma das situações que piorou o estado já debitilitado da economia russa nesse tempo fiquei a saber da existência de um potencial conflito de interesses quando há recolha de impostos central e regional. Este é um pormenor a considerar numa eventual regionalização.
“The majority of tax revenues came from taxes that were shared between the regional and federal governments, which fostered competition among the different levels of government over the distribution. According to Shleifer and Treisman (2000), this kind of tax sharing can result in conflicting incentives for regional governments and lead them to help firms conceal part of their taxable profit from the federal government in order to reduce the firms’ total tax payments. In return, the firm would then make transfers to the accommodating regional government. This, Shleifer and Treisman suggest, may explain why federal revenues dropped more rapidly than regional revenues.”
Ver também “Decentralization, Tax Evasion, and the Underground Economy: A Model with evidence from Russia“
