"Brazilian retail banking and the 2008 financial crisis: Were the government-controlled banks that important?"

A joint paper of Claudiney Pereira and Luiz F. Maia-Filho, of Federal Rural University of Pernambuco in Brazil, estimates the pass-through of monetary policy in Brazil from 2006 to 2010 using a unique data set developed by the authors. The main result was that government control over two of the largest banks, supposedly an asset for crisis management, may have had higher welfare costs than assumed. There was no evidence of asymmetry in adjustments of retail rates charged by private and government-controlled banks.

The study will be published in the Journal of Banking and Finance.