Itaú预计2027年巴西财政刺激减弱但仍正，中资企业需重估增长预期

Pedro Schneider Divulgação The contribution of Brazil’s fiscal and quasi-fiscal policies to GDP growth is expected to slow but remain positive in 2027, mainly because income transfers to households, which have a greater impact on economic activity, are likely to expand at a pace similar to that of 2026. That is the conclusion of a report by Itaú Unibanco economists Marina Garrido, Natalia Cotarelli, Pedro Schneider, and Thales Guimarães. Interest rate spread shields Brazilian currency despite election caution B3 outage hits stock exchange at crucial moment Next administration’s fiscal adjustment could take ‘several paths,’ Ceron says The analysis comes as economists intensify their debate over the possibility of a sharper slowdown in Brazil’s economy in 2027, depending on fiscal and credit policies. At the same time, analysts acknowledge that fiscal and quasi-fiscal stimulus during an election period would further undermine Brazil’s already fragile fiscal position. At the beginning of the year, the market median forecast for Brazil’s GDP growth in 2027 stood at 1.8%, according to the Central Bank’s Focus survey. It has now been revised down to 1.57%. Some economists expect even weaker growth. At the XP Expert event in July, portfolio manager Bruno Serra of Itaú Asset Management said he was working with GDP growth below 1% in 2027 and that the risk of a recession next year could not be ruled out, according to Valor’s Intraday blog. XP projects 1% growth, citing “the end of the effects of short-term stimulus and the likely cyclical pullback in credit,” according to a report. BTG Pactual forecasts 1.1%, while warning that growth could come in even lower, according to a report by the team led by chief economist Mansueto Almeida and head of macro research Tiago Berriel. “The outlook for next year is more challenging, with interest rates remaining at an even more contractionary level and fiscal stimulus close to neutral,” they wrote. More recently, ASA lowered its 2027 GDP growth forecast to 1.5% from 2%, citing expectations of a “hangover” from the fiscal and quasi-fiscal stimulus seen in 2026, which should reduce support for demand in an environment that will still feature high interest rates. Itaú Unibanco, however, disagrees with assessments that see the fiscal contribution as close to zero in 2027. “Whenever people talk about a sharper slowdown in activity, it is driven by the fiscal impulse. We think that is exaggerated because the composition of the impulse matters,” Schneider said. The bank’s economists highlight the difference between the concept of fiscal impulse and the contribution of fiscal policy to growth. While fiscal impulse represents the change over time in the stimulus generated by policy—in Itaú’s methodology, the year-over-year change in cumulative 12-month spending as a share of GDP from 12 months earlier, adjusted for inflation—the contribution of fiscal policy to growth depends not only on the magnitude of the impulse but also on its ability to feed through to economic activity. According to Itaú, this distinction is important because GDP responds differently to different types of fiscal measures. Those differences reflect factors such as the marginal propensity to consume among beneficiaries, the speed at which resources reach the economy, the share of spending that effectively becomes domestic income, and the efficiency and targeting of each public policy. On the spending side, for example, Itaú estimates that transfers to households—including Social Security benefits, the annual wage bonus, unemployment insurance, Continuous Cash Benefit (BPC), Bolsa Família, and court-ordered government payments (precatórios)—have the closest relationship with economic activity. Unlike other spending categories, these resources are quickly converted into higher disposable income and household consumption because they are directed toward groups with a high marginal propensity to consume. In addition, transfers are highly sensitive to growth in the minimum wage and the number of beneficiaries. Itaú estimates that GDP elasticity relative to total federal primary spending is around 0.5, while elasticity relative to transfers is close to 1. “If you give a family in Brazil R$100, they will probably spend close to R$100,” Schneider explained. According to Itaú, fiscal impulse is expected to decline from 1.6% to 0.2% of GDP between 2026 and 2027, but the fiscal contribution to GDP should fall by less—from 1 percentage point to 0.5 percentage point—because the contribution from transfers to households is expected to remain virtually unchanged, at 0.6 percentage point in 2026 and 0.5 percentage point in 2027. Total federal primary spending growth is expected to slow from 5% in real terms in 2026 to 1.5% in 2027—or from 2% to 0.2% of GDP, according to Itaú. The bank says this slowdown should result from the expiration of extraordinary measures implemented in 2026, such as subsidies related to mitigating the effects of the war in Iran, as well as moderation in other spending items, including court-ordered payments to companies. Itaú’s estimates indicate, however, that these components have a significantly smaller impact on economic activity than transfers to households. “Who benefits from measures such as fuel subsidies? Petrobras, for example. Did it hire more workers or invest more because of that? Probably not,” Schneider said. “These are cases in which spending has a greater impact on prices than on economic activity itself,” Guimarães added. Thus, according to Itaú, viewing the fiscal contribution as close to zero in 2027 assumes that the spending categories expected to slow the most have economic multipliers similar to those of transfers to households—an assumption that finds little support in the empirical evidence, the economists said. Trasfers to households In 2026, due to a 2.5% real increase in the minimum wage and strong growth in the number of Social Security (INSS) beneficiaries as the government works to reduce the backlog of benefit claims, spending on transfers to households is expected to rise 3.9% in real terms, according to Itaú. Under current rules, such spending should continue growing by around 4% in 2027, the bank said. Quasi-fiscal instruments, such as targeted credit programs and special lines operated by public banks, can also stimulate economic activity, Itaú noted. Their contribution, however, tends to be smaller than that of transfers. The bank estimates an average elasticity of around 0.4 for targeted credit programs and subsidized lines. According to Itaú, the main reason for the lower elasticity is that credit operates through more indirect and less immediate channels. “Part of the funds finance investments that affect economic activity only with a lag; part replaces transactions that would have taken place even without the incentive; and part is not fully converted into additional demand, whether because households and companies choose to save, reduce debt, or simply because there aren’t enough projects or opportunities,” the economists said. They also noted that, unlike transfers, whose final destination is known, the effectiveness of credit depends on the quality of resource allocation. “The segments that benefit don’t always coincide with those offering the highest economic return or the greatest capacity to boost activity,” they said. For 2027, Itaú expects the quasi-fiscal impulse to remain neutral rather than reverse. After contributing 0.35 percentage point to GDP in 2026, the bank still sees a marginally positive impact of 0.1 percentage point in 2027. “Our scenario does not incorporate a significant reduction in the room allocated to credit policies or a dismantling of the disbursements that keep current programs in place,” the team said. In their view, a meaningful negative contribution from the quasi-fiscal impulse would require not only halting existing programs but an active and rapid reversal of the accumulated stock of incentives and subsidies. Combining fiscal and quasi-fiscal policies, Itaú calculates that the overall impulse will fall from 2.6% to 0.4% of GDP, but the contribution to economic activity will slow by less — from 1.4 percentage points to 0.6 percentage point. The bank’s GDP growth forecasts of 1.9% for 2026 and 1.5% for 2027 already incorporate these effects. BTG Pactual notes that the combination of strong fiscal and quasi-fiscal expansion has supported household income, consumption, and leverage since the pandemic. However, a possible slowdown in those forms of stimulus, combined with elevated interest rates over a prolonged period and recent supply shocks, could turn high household debt into an effective constraint on consumption, according to Tiago Berriel, Bruno Martins, and Mateus Della. In a study, they estimate that moderate income growth of 2% in real terms in 2027, together with household deleveraging in line with past cycles, would generate a flow consistent with consumption growth of 0.8% next year. If deleveraging is more pronounced and/or income growth comes closer to flat, however, consumption could decline by close to 0.4%. For Itaú’s team, household debt has already weighed on consumption in recent quarters, but the tight labor market suggests households will remain “minimally resilient,” avoiding “nonlinear” scenarios, Schneider said.