The Inevitable Crisis of the Brazilian Housing Finance System

Abstract

This paper summarises the major trends which produced a crisis in the Brazilian Housing Finance System (SFH) during the first half of the 1980s. It constitutes a first effort to contextualise the question within the broader economic framework of recent Brazilian development. It holds the thesis that the crisis was inevitable, due to both the SFH's original operational format and several inconsistent measures adopted piecemeal according to political and economic convenience.