Indexing in Brazil

After reviewing the distortions which inflation brought about in Brazil, the authors describe the indexing system which was introduced during the sixties to prevent such distortions and to build up a capital market. There follows an analysis of the impact of indexing on various types of savings instruments, on the distribution of credit and on the balance of payments. The last section of the paper deals with the effects of indexing on inflation, resource allocation, income distribution and the collection of adequate data.