IESET.
Policies·brazil_plano_real_1994

Plano Real — Brazil monetary stabilisation 1994

BRA·1994 ·enacted 1994-07-01·PMDB / PSDB centre-rightcandidate
movescentral bank independencespending level

What the policy did

Architect: Finance Minister Fernando Henrique Cardoso under President Itamar Franco (Cardoso subsequently elected president 1994, 1998). Three-stage anti-inflation programme: (1) fiscal adjustment via Plano de Ação Imediata (1993); (2) URV (Unit of Real Value) as indexed accounting unit de-indexing prices from past inflation; (3) Real launched July 1994 at 1:1 to URV. Ended Brazilian hyper- inflation (2,477% in 1993) within months. Anchored by semi-fixed exchange-rate crawling peg through 1998, then floating after 1999 currency crisis. One of the most successful ends-to- hyperinflation on record — textbook combination of fiscal adjustment + credible monetary rule + nominal anchor.

Policy-content fingerprint — what this policy moved, on which axes

Per invariant 3, reforms are scored by what they did on each channel-separated axis, not by the party that enacted them. This fingerprint is how the policy-match engine finds historical analogues.

intended
central bank independence
monetary.central_bank_independence
De jure and de facto independence of the central bank from fiscal authority. Per D.1.5 scope, one of the framework's defensible monetary positions.
increased · strong
greater independence (legal, operational, personnel)
spending level
fiscal.spending_level
General government spending as share of GDP, excluding transfers already captured under fiscal.transfer_expansion to avoid double-counting.
decreased · moderate
lower spending share

Enacted by

Empirical evidence — linked hypotheses

Explicit links are curated by the author. Inferred links are hypotheses in the library that test the same axes this policy moved — the framework's answer to "what does the data say about a policy like this?".

Every documented hyperinflation episode since 1900 (Weimar Germany, post-WW2 Hungary, Yugoslavia 1990s, Zimbabwe 2000s, Venezuela 2010s-2020s, among others) was preceded by fiscal dominance — a state of affairs where monetary policy is subordinated to financing government deficits that cannot be financed by taxation or market-rate borrowing.
hyperinflation_requires_fiscal_dominance
INCONCLUSIVE_DATA_PENDING — no outcome variable loaded; missing: ['hanke:hyperinflation_table']
run pending
Truss 2022 mini-budget shows that unfunded fiscal expansion above the ZLB triggers sharp bond-market and currency responses through expected-inflation and risk-premium channels.
unfunded_fiscal_expansion_above_zlb_bond_market_responseinferred
viafiscal.spending_levelmonetary.central_bank_independence
SUPPORTED — GBP/USD trough on 2022-09-26 (1.0703) was 5.02% below the 2022-09-22 pre-announcement close (1.1269); log-decline +0.0515 clears the 3.0% threshold …
supported
UK Truss mini-budget 2022 gilt crisis reflected market confidence and institutional-framework rupture rather than an MMT-predicted hard fiscal limit, because the BoE restored order by intervening as issuer.
uk_truss_mini_budget_currency_sovereign_mechanisminferred
viamonetary.central_bank_independencefiscal.spending_level
partial — Both mechanism legs are directionally consistent but at least one fails the SUPPORTED threshold: FX leg holds (5.02% trough decline); yield leg partia…
partial
UK GDP per capita (PPP, constant international dollars) diverged negatively from a matched synthetic counterfactual of similar-income anglophone/developed economies (USA, CAN, AUS, NZL, DEU, NLD, CHE) starting around 2008 and widening post-2016 (Brexit referendum).
uk_economic_decline_multi_movementinferred
viafiscal.spending_levelmonetary.central_bank_independence
INCONCLUSIVE_DATA_PENDING — treatment 'uk_post_2008' has no within-country variation under country fixed effects
run pending
The September 2022 UK gilt-market dysfunction had its operative amplification mechanism in the foreign-currency-collateral exposure of the Liability-Driven Investment (LDI) leveraged-derivative chain in the UK pension system, not in a "fiscal limit" reached by the sovereign issuer.
truss_2022_currency_user_ldi_collateral_mechanisminferred
viamonetary.central_bank_independencefiscal.spending_level
INCONCLUSIVE_DATA_PENDING — no outcome variable loaded; missing: ['boe:IUDLG7N', 'boe:IUDMNZC', 'boe:gilt_volatility (manual); ice:UK_gilt_options', 'fred:DEXUS…
run pending
Large welfare states sustain long-run real GDP per capita growth when paired with market flexibility (low product- and labour-market barriers), trade openness, and fiscal discipline (debt-to-GDP below 90%), but not when paired with rigid product and labour markets, in an OECD and rich- country panel 1980-2020.
welfare_state_market_flexibility_complementinferred
viafiscal.spending_level
PARTIAL — coef=+3.308e-18, p=0.653; effect magnitude effectively zero
partial
Japan post-1990 has run gross public-debt-to-GDP ratios from ~70% rising to ~250%, the highest sustained level in the OECD record, WITHOUT triggering inflation, currency collapse, sovereign-spread blowout, or fiscal-dominance-induced loss of monetary control.
fiscal_dominance_japan_debt_non_crisisinferred
viamonetary.central_bank_independencefiscal.spending_level
INCONCLUSIVE_PENDING_DATA
run pending
Argentine monthly CPI inflation declines from its late-2023 peak (around 25% month-on-month in December 2023 following the 54% peso devaluation) to below 5% month-on-month within 12 months of Milei's December 2023 inauguration, and below 3% month-on- month within 18 months.
milei_reforms_reduce_argentine_inflationinferred
viamonetary.central_bank_independencefiscal.spending_level
INCONCLUSIVE_DATA_PENDING - INDEC IPC Nacional vintage missing from local data/vintages; expected indec:148.3_INIVELNAL_DICI_M_26 (indec:148.3_INIVELNAL_DICI_M_…
run pending
Fiscal multipliers are state-dependent: large at ZLB, small near full employment; no single-number answer is policy-relevant.
fiscal_multipliers_state_dependentinferred
viafiscal.spending_level
REFUTED — sign - OPPOSITE claim +, cumulative_effect=-1.569, h=5, p_h=0.0155
refuted

Similar historical policies

Ranked by axis-fingerprint overlap with this policy. Direction match bolded — those are the closest historical analogues. Shape of the match is what drives policy-outcome comparison, not the country or party label.