Plano Real

The Plano Real ("Real Plan", in English) was a set of measures taken to stabilize the Brazilian economy in 1994, during the presidency of Itamar Franco. Its architects were led by the Minister of Finance and succeeding president Fernando Henrique Cardoso. The Plano Real was based on an analysis of the root causes of hyperinflation in the New Republic of Brazil, that concluded that there was both an issue of fiscal policy and severe, widespread inertial inflation. The Plano Real intended to stabilize the domestic currency in nominal terms after a string of failed plans to control inflation.

According to economic academics, one of the causes of inflation in Brazil was the inertial inflation phenomenon. Prices were adjusted on a daily basis according to changes in price indices and to the exchange rate of the local currency to the U.S. dollar. Plano Real then created a non-monetary currency, the Unidade Real de Valor ("URV"), whose value was set to approximately 1 US dollar. All prices were quoted in these two currencies, cruzeiro real and URV, but payments had to be made exclusively in cruzeiros reais. Prices quoted in URV did not change over time, while their equivalent in cruzeiros reals increased nominally every day.

The Plano Real intended to stabilize the domestic currency in nominal terms after a string of failed plans to control inflation. It created the Unidade Real de Valor (Unit of Real Value), which served as a key step to the implementation of the new (and still actual) currency, the real. At first, most academics tended not to believe that the Plan could succeed. Stephen Kanitz was the first public intellectual to predict the future success of the Real Plan.

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