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The expert

Otaviano Canuto draws on extensive experience working in multilateral institutions, government, and academia across a wide range of markets and countries to assist clients navigate challenges and opportunities.

Latest articles

AI and the Future of Government: Unexpected Effects and Critical Challenges

Based on observable facts, this policy paper explores some of the less-acknowledged yet critically important ways in which artificial intelligence (AI) may affect the public sector and its role. Our focus is on those areas where AI’s influence might be understated currently, but where it has substantial implications for future government policies and actions.
We identify four main areas of impact that could redefine the public sector role, require new answers from it, or both. These areas are the emergence of a new language-based digital divide, jobs displacement in the public administration, disruptions in revenue mobilization, and declining government responsiveness.
This discussion not only identifies critical areas but also underscores the importance of transcending conventional approaches in tackling them. As we examine these challenges, we shed light on their significance, seeking to inform policymakers and stakeholders about the nuanced ways in which AI may quietly, yet profoundly, alter the public sector landscape.

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The Middle-Income Trap and Resource-Based Growth: The Case of Brazil

This paper examines Brazil’s economic growth patterns over the last three decades and identifies a missed opportunity for the country to attain high-income status by the mid-2010s. Instead, Brazil has suffered from low productivity growth, and has made little progress in transforming its production and export structures in favor of higher value-added activities. This premature de-industrialization makes it challenging for Brazil to transition from its long-standing upper-middle-income status. Brazil now has a limited, two-decade window to catch up with high-income nations before losing its demographic dividend, potentially leaving the country with an aging population without achieving high-income status. Therefore, it is crucial for Brazil to raise productivity growth through competition policies, and by embracing technological change. Achieving this goal requires comprehensive trade reforms to improve domestic competition, and to harness technology advancements effectively. This paper discusses key elements of such a policy framework within the broader context of a development strategy aimed at breaking free from the middle-income trap.

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Os desafios do crescimento econômico da China

Pode-se apontar seis desafios a serem enfrentados pelo crescimento econômico chinês nos próximos anos.
Xi Jinping deveria reforçar a proteção social e retomar a proposta de seu antecessor de “rebalancear” empresas públicas e privadas para contornar desafios, escreve Otaviano Canuto

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Emerging Markets and Developing Economies in the Global Financial Safety Net

When countries face external financial shocks, they must rely on financial buffers to counter such shocks. The global financial safety net is the set of institutions and arrangements that provide lines of defense for economies against such shocks.
From any individual country standpoint, there are three lines of defense in their external financial safety nets: international reserves, pooled resources (swap lines and plurilateral financing arrangements), and the International Monetary Fund.
We argue here that there is a need to extend and facilitate access to the ultimate global financial safety net layer: the IMF. We illustrate that by pointing out how Morocco and Mexico have boosted their defensive power by having access to IMF precautionary lines of credit.

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How Will Artificial Intelligence Affect the Economy?

A recent IMF report estimated that half of the jobs impacted will be affected negatively, while the other half may see increases in productivity. The lesser impact on emerging and developing countries will tend to lead to fewer benefits in terms of increased productivity.

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Phone: +1 202 499 8220
Email: ocanuto@cmacrodev.com