Credit is everywhere: the disputes over popular consumer credit policies in Brazil and in a comparative perspective

Author(s)

Mariana Falcão Chaise

• Document type: Doctoral Thesis
• Press: São Paulo.
• Institution: Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH/SBD)
• Defense date: 2023-12-14

Examining board members

Marta Teresa da Silva Arretche; Celso Fernando Rocha de Barros; Olivier Dabène; Andre Vitor Singer

• Advisor: Marta Teresa da Silva Arretche

Abstract

This dissertation delves into \"consumer credit policies\", that is, policies for the provision of loans without specific destination. The focus will be on analyzing the controversies surrounding the formulation and proposition of these policies, which multiplied from the 1990s onward in various national contexts. However, the literature displays theoretical controversies regarding the reasons for adopting them, as well as empirical divergences concerning their effects, especially on the most vulnerable. Fundamentally, it establishes a connection between credit policies and the preferences of conservative groups and governments. Nevertheless, consumer credit policies were adopted, in significant volume and relevance, by the Lula government in Brazil. This dissertation will argue that - even when placed under the same nomenclature - public policies exhibit distinct trajectories, as they involve different coalitions of actors engaged in their promotion, displaying a diversity of possible designs. It will further argue that the definition of the social coalitions participating in policy formulation is a function of government ideology. To achieve its goals, the research maps the different actors engaged in the adoption of Brazilian consumer credit policies, highlighting their disputes, the justifications used in support of the policies, and the type of problems each group believed to be addressed. Subsequently, it contrasts the design of policies implemented in Brazil by a center-left government with the design of similar policies implemented in Mexico by a right-wing government during the same period, seeking a logic of causality between the adopted policy design and the ruling party. Using a mixed methodological approach based on documentary analysis, public opinion analysis, descriptive statistics, and in-depth interviews, it will demonstrate that ideologically distinct actors advocated for the adoption of consumer credit policies in Brazil based on specific objectives and contexts, framing them within different arrangements of public policies. Through the comparison between Brazil and Mexico, it will show that the policies implemented in each country differed in their format due to the involvement of unions in the former case and international organizations in the latter. Thus, the relationship established between conservative preferences and the adoption of credit policies encompasses the Mexican case, where these policies indeed faced organized opposition from the left. In the Brazilian case, where the preferences of workers\' coalitions were imprinted on the policies through the action of the Lula government, the literature is mistaken in its exploration of intentions of the policies and is one-dimensional in terms of the reasons for their adoption, rendering the paradox it raises inadequate (AU)

• FAPESP's process: 19/15010-8 - Credit and inequality: the credit policy on the Latin American agenda
• Grantee: Mariana Falcão Chaise
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate