ENSAIOS SOBRE SUSTENTABILIDADE DA DÍVIDA PÚBLICA DO ESTADO DO CEARÁ

Abstract

The sustainability of the public debt of the federated entities is a topic of constant discussion, both in the academic sphere and in the public and private sector. Although indebtedness is a way of leveraging investments necessary for economic development, monitoring and balanced management in the use of third party resources are essential. Brazilian public debt has always been a problem for public finances. High rates in this indicator impact the expectations of economic agents and, consequently, the level of investment in the economy. In the State of Ceará, the constant search for sustainable and balanced fiscal management depends on the approach and joint action of academia and the public sector in studies and actions that verify the quality of investments, public policies and levels of public indebtedness. On this sense, there are three essays on the public debt of Ceará, to compose this doctoral thesis. The first arises from the need to verify the reaction movements in relation to the debt level. It addresses the solvency of the public debt of the state of Ceará, based on the fiscal reaction framework for the period between the 1st quarter of 2008 and the 3rd quarter of 2019 (2008b1 - 2019b3). Regarding an extension of the prior model fiscal reaction, we incorporate measurement of the elasticities of the oscillations of the disaggregated items with greater participation in revenues or expenses, which are sensitive to the conduct of state public policy. The second essay comes as a result of the first, in order to analyze the foreign exchange risk of the external debt in the sustainability of this indebtedness. It is proposed to project one year ahead the worst scenario in the historical series of each debt broken down - by index or currency - for the state of Ceará. Methodologically, a Parametric Approach to Value Exposed to Risk (VaR) approach is used based on the best fit distribution probability. Finally, an analysis is made of the impact of this indebtedness on the economic growth of Ceará. The empirical structure combined the classical modeling of time series (granger causality and cointegration analysis) and the analysis of the Wavelet transform to assess the debt/growth ratio in the domain of time and frequency. The tests allow us to conclude that there is no systematic fiscal reaction resulting from increases in the debt stock. Despite the excessive appreciation of the dollar, debt remains at levels adequate to legislative requirements. There is no direct relationship between indebtedness levels and economic growth in Ceará. One of the great gains of the essays is the systematization of a constant monitoring of the public debt, with a partnership between academia and the public sector that already leads to several other insights on the subject.