Ohio State University. Department of Agricultural, Environmental, and Development Economics
Abstract
Several developing countries have used credit policies to achieve agricultural development goals. The Brazilian case is especially revealing because huge amounts of rural credit have been channeled to agriculture, and credit policy was such an important part of agricultural policy during the past couple of decades. This paper reviews Brazilian credit policies and the impact of credit on agriculture over the 1960-1985 period. It serves as an important updating of our earlier paper that analyzed developments as of the mid-1970's [Araujo and Meyer (1978)). This paper includes data from the 1980 census which confirm some of the trends identified in the earlier paper. It also includes new information on the highly controversial issue in Brazil of the magnitude and impact of subsidies provided through negative real interest rates on agricultural loans
