Weatherhead Fellow Discusses Brazilian Economy

Seated at a round table in Leverett Private Dining Room, Fabio L. Carneiro, the deputy head of supervision department at the Central Bank of Brazil, led a dinner discussion with students about international economics in Brazil.

Carneiro spoke about Brazil’s rising influence in global markets and finance through the lens of an economist working as a Brazilian citizen and as a banking supervisor for the past 15 years.

“Brazil is a regional power in South America and has a foreign policy that is designed to give importance to South-South trade. It’s now trying to implement a diversification policy in its trade,” Carneiro said. “The U.S. is losing importance as a commercial partner, while China, India, and South American countries are gaining power.”

Carneiro is at Harvard as a Weatherhead Center for International Affairs Fellow, where he is working on a research project about the impact of changes in financial prudential regulations on the stability versus efficiency trade-off in Brazil, Russia, India, and China—known as the BRIC countries.

He added that he also meets regularly with other fellows and is auditing a Harvard class on economic growth.

The Harvard International Relations on Campus, which acts as the liaison between the Weatherhead Center and Harvard undergraduates, organizes dinner talks by fellows throughout the year.

Roland Yang ’14, a member of IRoC’s dinner discussion committee, chose Carneiro as the speaker because of his interest in economics.

“Right now Brazil has a new president and one of their concerns is economic growth,” Yang said. “[Carneiro] is well placed to provide firsthand experience about the situation.”

Several recent events organized by IRoC have focused on developing countries in Latin America and the BRIC countries. A two-part study group was held on state failure in Latin America and concluded with a discussion on Brazilian state issues last Monday.

“IRoC exists on behalf of undergraduates, so we try to organize events that attract their interests. We have seen that Harvard students are interested in developing countries,” said Jonathan M. Kaufman ’12, IRoC co-president.

The discussion was followed by questions from students. Victoria Baena ’14, an IRoC member, said she appreciated the opportunity for informal discussion. Baena is traveling to Brazil over J-Term to explore the country’s culture.

“Students are looking at who’s going to be the future economic giants because those are the countries we’re going to be working with,” Baena said.