Changes in global economic conditions will lead to only a modest economic slowdown in Brazil and Mexico that should not affect political stability in either country, while political and economic uncertainty in Argentina will remain high as its new president's reforms are tested in his first year in office. Global economic cycles -- which bring about changes in commodity prices, interest rates, exchange rates and global demand -- have traditionally driven the fortunes and misfortunes of Latin American economies. In the late 1970s, a sharp increase in U.S. interest rates pushed much of the region into financial default for the following decade, a period known as the ''Lost Decade.'' Before the global financial crisis in 2008, a combination of low interest rates and a long, China-driven commodity boom then helped accelerate economic growth in Latin America in the 1990s, up until the global financial crisis in 2008. In the wake...
