Dia 29 de fevereiro, 3 economistas do Fundo Monetario Internacional (Jonathan D Ostry, Atish R. Ghosh and Marcos Chamon) divulgaram um paper com o titulo Two Targets, Two Instruments: Monetary and Exchange Rate Policies in Emerging Market Economies. Tomei a liberdade de utilizar o titulo abreviado para este e-mail.Lendo o texto, parece que ele foi contratado pelos autoridades brasileiras para justificar a queda da SELIC sem prejuizo do sistema de metas de inflacao e a intervencao no cambio para conter a apreciacao do real. Ainda que nao seja opiniao do FMI, o texto foi Authorized for distribution by Olivier Blanchard.(http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/sdn/2012/sdn1201.pdf)If EME central banks worry about currency movements away from medium run levels (which, we argue, they typically do), then an IT-cum-sterilized-FX-intervention regime may provide the best of both worlds: the discipline of IT with the exchange rate responsiveness of a managed float.Os economistas argumentam que a persistencia e um importante parametro entre a escolha de intervencao no cambio e utilizacao de juros para conter o fluxo de capital. Quando o fluxo e temporario, a intervencao funciona melhor. Se o fluxo se mantiver persistente, os juros precisarao ser reduzidos mais que o necessario. Olhando a decisao da semana passada de corte de 0,75% poderiamos inferir que finalmente as autoridades brasileiras se deram conta de que o fluxo de investimento tende a ser mais persistente e passarao a utilizar o canal dos juros como complemento as intervencoes no cambio? Parece que sim.... when the shock is more persistent, the policy interest rate will be lowered by more, thus playing a larger role relative to FX intervention. This accords with the usual intuition that the authorities should allow the economy to adjust to permanent shocks (including capital inflows) but intervene to absorb temporary shocks that move the economy away from its medium-term equilibrium.Alem disto, argumentam que o BC nao deveria especificar um nivel para o cambio, do contrario poderia incentivar os agentes a tomarem posicoes de carry trade. ... if the central bank is perceived as defending a specific parity, this could encourage greater carry trade to take advantage of interest rate differentials (since downside risk for investors would be limited).Como conclusao, os autores apontam que a utilizacao de intervencoes no cambio longe de prejudicar o regime de metas, contribui para a percepcao dos agentes de que as autoridades estao comprometidas em manter a inflacao sob controle.When the central bank is seeking to entrench its commitment to low inflation in the eyes of the public, a two-instrument IT framework may yield significant benefits. ... In response, for instance, to a destabilizing increase in capital inflows, the central bank can both lower the policy rate and intervene in the FX market to limit appreciation, in much the same way as it would do under unconstrained full discretion, but while avoiding the inflationary bias that would otherwise result from discretionary policies. Far from being reticent to use the second instrument, central banks should embrace its use as being fully consistent with the IT framework.E assim, Dando seguimento ao processo de ajuste das condicoes monetarias, o Copom decidiu