Below is an abstract for a paper presented at the 2014 Latin American Social and Public Policy Conference held at the University of Pittsburgh. Click here for a link to the PDF of the full article.
This paper evaluates the effects of recent U.S. monetary policy on South American economies by examining exchange rates and export performance following the 2008-2009 financial crisis. During the recovery and the U.S. Federal Reserve’s response through quantitative easing (QE), many South American finance ministers became increasingly accusatory of a U.S. “beggar thy neighbor” monetary policy, and central banks acted to resist the appreciation of their own currencies. By looking more closely at exchange rates and South American export trends with dollar-denominated trade partners, this analysis aims to clarify QE’s observed effects on these economies and the extent to which their policy responses influenced these outcomes.
