Pay Now or Suffer Later: South America's Currency Dilemma

South America's history throughout the 1980s and 1990s is littered with the names of now-defunct currencies, such as the Argentine austral and the Brazilian cruzeiro. Now, an old vulnerability is re-emerging as an economic and political Achilles’ heel for several South American governments: exchange rates.

Some are clamping down on citizens' purchases of U.S. dollars, in attempts to prop up local money and stem capital flight. Others are promoting central bank dollar purchases and sales, or deploying derivatives contracts, to manage volatile exchange rates. ...