Product Description Most of the analysis of Latin American exchange rate problems and policies has concentrated on the economic side of things. This volume instead examines the politics of exchange rate management in four nations that had very different approaches and results. Although the Mexican peso crash, Brazil's currency crisis, Argentina's maintenance of a currency board, and Venezuelan policy responses to the shocks of 1997-98 have had major international financial ramifications, the origins and outcomes of these dramatic events have yet to be analyzed in a single volume. The contributors tie these policy episodes together using solid comparative analysis, in order to better inform the policy debate on these issues. Review "... timely and elegantly written." Carlos Santiso, Johns Hopkins University, Latin American Studies, vol. 34, 2002 "A welcome contribution to a policy area that has not recieved due scholarly attention among Latin Americanists. Few policy areas bring to light so clearly the tradeoffs and tensions that exist between economics and politics." Omar Sanchez, University of Oxford, Journal of Development Studies, 12/1/2001 About the Author Carol Wise is associate professor of international relations at the University of Southern California. Her most recent books include Reinventing the State: Economic Strategy and Institutional Change in Peru (Michigan, 2003) and with Riordan Roett, Post Stabilization Politics in Latin America: Competition, Transition, Collapse (Brookings, 2003).