Regional currencies and regional monetary zones in Latin America : whats prospects ?

Reducing transaction costs and the need for international reserves is a primary objective to the establishment of regional payment agreements. Another objective, especially in the case of Latin America where the Ecuadorian promoters of the Bank of the South (Banco del Sur) and the New Regional Finan...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inJournal of post Keynesian economics Vol. 32; no. 2; pp. 173 - 184
Main Authors Gnos, Claude, Monvoisin, Virginie, Ponsot, Jean-François
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Taylor & Francis 2010
Subjects
Economics and Finance
Humanities and Social Sciences
currency union
zone monétaire
échange international
Amérique latine
paiement
payment systems
monnaie
politique monétaire
regional monetary zone
monetary agreements
Latin America
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Summary:Reducing transaction costs and the need for international reserves is a primary objective to the establishment of regional payment agreements. Another objective, especially in the case of Latin America where the Ecuadorian promoters of the Bank of the South (Banco del Sur) and the New Regional Financial Architecture are planning the implementation of a regional clearing system, is to reduce member countries' dependence on the U.S. dollar as an international standard and reserve currency. To help improve the design of such agreements, this paper refers to the plan Keynes designed for the Bretton Woods conference. First, it observes that cases were made against this plan from which useful lessons may still be drawn. Second, it shows that Keynes defined a system for exchanging domestic currencies for each other that can be improved and help design currency unions in accordance with their promoters'objectives.
ISSN:0160-3477