Plano Real - The Problem

The Problem

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 based its actions on an analysis of the root causes of inflation in the post-military dictatorship Brazil that concluded that there was both an issue of fiscal policy and severe, widespread inertial inflation.