PAULO GUEDES might not be your first-choice brother-in-law. He is a close adviser to Jair Bolsonaro, Brazil’s populist president-elect, who is wistful for military rule. But if you invest in emerging-market government bonds, Mr Guedes is the sort of person you might want as economy minister, the post he will take up on January 1st. He was co-founder of BTG Pactual, Brazil’s Goldman Sachs. He has a PhD in economics from the University of Chicago. He favours tax reform and privatisation.
Brazil is not the only focus of attention for such investors. This week Andrés Manuel López Obrador, a left-leaning populist, was sworn in as president of Mexico. He has cancelled a $ 13bn bond-financed airport that is already one-third-built. In November a committee of South Africa’s parliament resolved that the constitution should permit land reform without compensation. Some have begun to worry about what Narendra Modi might do to secure re-…
