Abstract

Recently, a number of Latin American countries with high inflation and various kinds of imbalances have experienced disinflation stabilisation programmes. Brasil implemented in July 1994 the Real Plan — an exchange-rate-based stabilisation experiment. This paper revisits this experience examining the main reasons for the collapse of the exchangerate regime, in January 1999, from alternative theoretical points of view. What emerges from the paper is the conclusion that most of the “new” arguments presented to explain the Brazilian currency crisis are arguments used in the past by heterodox theorists.

JEL Classification: E31; N16.