In a radical move for any government entity, Brazil's central bank has purged a number of career civil servants in positions of power and replaced them with young, relatively unknown economists from prestigious local banks. Even early free-market champions, such as Chile, have been unable to break with the Latin American custom of appointing career technocrats and civil servants to guide central banks' policies.
Experts say that tradition has tended to ossify decision- making in times of severe market turmoil.
But because board members will be presidential appointees, they can be fired at any time. Critics read this as a measure of the bank's continuing lack of independence.