A nova Lei de Falências brasileira e seu papel no desenvolvimento do mercado de crédito

Abstract

This paper focus on the New Brazilian Bankruptcy Law, its effects on the economy and, mainly, its consequences on the development of the credit-market. Through a simple theoretical model, economic incentives associated with several aspects of bankruptcy laws and some peculiar features of the Brazilian old law are examined. After this theoretical discussion, we evaluate empirically the pre-reform stage of the Brazilian bankruptcy law comparing it with those in several regions around the world. As a result, we find that the old Brazilian Bankruptcy Law was extremely inefficient, even when compared with regions of lower per capita income. Making use of econometric models it is possible to see that such inefficiency brought severe consequences for the local credit-market. Finally, analyzing the main aspects of the Brazilian Bankruptcy Law reform we conclude that changes made in the legal system will be able to bring a significant development of the credit-market, expanding the volume of credit reducing the interest rate on loans and improving overall economic efficiency.