Brazil and Venezuela present relatively high economic policy risks that may reduce anticipated long-run growth. Brazil s exchange risk fell sharply after it floated the real. Argentina s exchange risk, on the other hand, increased sharply in the past twelve months. Mexico s policy and exchange risks fall in a middle range. Prospects for hemispheric integration are uncertain.
Different countries support different strategies for reasons of national interest.
Key actors here are Brazil and the United States. This paper assesses the saving picture from several perspectives. The consumer sector is not severely strained by low saving, in part because of dramatic gains on the balance sheet. Moreover, the national saving rate has been advancing while the personal portion has declined. By international standards, conventional measures of gross saving make U.S. performance look poor, but after several corrections the picture is much more favorable.