Regional currencies and regional monetary zones in Latin America: what 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 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 than can be improved and help design currency unions in accordance with their promoters' objectives.