Os bancos públicos comerciais na economia e na política: as suas influências nos municípios brasileiros

Abstract

One role of public banks is to invest in places and projects that private banks, due to certain constraints, do not invest. They have to concern, above all, to economic growth and social development. However, several studies have reported government banks have provided loans considering political factors, favoring places and projects for pure partisan interest. In this work, we study the relationship between the commercial credit of public banks and Brazilian municipal economic growth and financial crisis of 2008 and municipal elections. We consider the period from 1996 to 2016 and segregate municipalities at two levels of development. Using the ordinary least squares method in time series with panel data, our results suggest that the commercial credit granted by Brazilian state banks is not causal to economic growth in the cities where they operate exclusively. However, we can state statistically that these public institutions participated in the increase of the per capita GDP of the Brazilian municipalities during the financial crisis of 2008. Our results also suggest that the state banks make loans for political reasons in the periods of municipal election.