A especulação como combustível do crescimento econômico

Abstract

The analysis of the importance of speculative capital has always been an underestimated topic among economists. Speculation is usually associated with financial crises and, thus, leaving a blank gap on how such speculative capital would be vital to the investment process and hence economic growth. This work aims to study the behavior of speculative capital, its agents and their respective roles in economic cycles. The investigative process starts from the idea that the speculative economic agents provide liquidity to the diverse productive sectors, in a speculative form of credit, seeking better returns (profit seeking). The productive sectors, in turn, use this capital to finance their investments. Also, there is a positive relationship between the development of the financial system and economic growth, because the development of the financial system is crucial for the creation of communication channels between speculative capital and productive capital. Hence, financial institutions are decisive to the creation of credit, used by these same speculative agents. Since speculative capital is volatile, it can provide a favorable environment for investments in the productive chain or the opposite. In this way, a scenario where a speculative capital flight, the prices of financial assets of companies tend to devalue. If, for example, the value of your stock falls, the market value of it falls, having it with creditors (which do not change), the company will be leveraged and in difficulty to make new investments.