Uma abordagem econométrica para o impacto do IOF sobre câmbio e investimento em carteira no Brasil

Abstract

Capital controls have been adopted by many countries in attempt to protect their economies from the financial capital. In Brazil, it was no different. There, the main instrument of financial control adopted was Tax on Credit, Exchange and Insurance or relating to Securities - IOF. The fundamental idea of the tax was to restrict the entry of foreign capital and thus reduce possible negative effects on the national economy. There was also a concern to prevent an excessive appreciation of the exchange rate. So, under such panorama, this study aims to investigate the impact of the IOF on the Brazilian economy, specifically analyzing the effect on the volatility of the foreign capital invested in portfolio and exchange rate. For such purpose, structural models are designed to analyze the relationships between key variables through the VAR methodology for the conditional mean; then, the effect of tax rates on the conditional variance of exchange and portfolio investment is tested, using the multivariate GARCH’s method. The sample period is from January 2000 to December 2012. The results showed a significant effect of the IOF on the volatility of portfolio investment, but the same does not happen with the exchange rate volatility, which is influenced by the volatility of the interest rate differential and the dollar amount traded in the market.