Narratives and Public Policies: The Case of the Brazilian Development Bank

Over the last decades, the Brazilian Development Bank (BNDES) has been the main source of long-term credit for investments in Brazil. However, from the mid-2010s onward, the fiscal costs of the subsidized credits provided by the bank have been increasingly stressed, configuring a second narrative of its role in the Brazilian economy. Based upon a review of the most frequently cited and most relevant academic articles about the BNDES published between 2005 and 2019, this paper analyzes these competing narratives and their impact on the public policies adopted to foster investments in the country. In a context marked by lower market interest rates and by an increasing capacity of large companies to obtain long-term credit from non-governmental sources, the second narrative prevailed over the last years and led to a law reform in 2017 to reduce the subsidies provided by the bank. The paper empirically demonstrates a narrative shift that influenced public policies regarding development banking and shows how changing settings affect the interest groups’ capacity to disseminate their narratives.