This article lays out the general economic principles of exchange rate policy and provides an overview of the four country cases that have been included in this special edition of the journal: Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, and Venezuela. Three main currency regimes are discussed: the fixed but...

This article assesses the impacts of Brazil's exchange-based stabilization plan (Plano Real) on the country's external financial fragility and discusses alternative exchange policies to overcome the external vulnerability. An index for external financial fragility is applied to a time series of...