This paper develops a stable common currency for mid-sized open monetary economies with
incomplete markets in general and the Mercosur countries in particular. The proposed currency
is constructed as a derivative of a dynamic portfolio of securities that proxies the nominal
exchange risk factors for a set of monies and floats against the rest of the world’s currencies.
We find that the resulting optimal common currency is comprised of currencies with country
weights that are statistically significant and fairly symmetrical with relatively equal weight
(e.g., 22% Argentinean pesos, 27% Brazilian reals, 27% Chilean pesos, and 23% Uruguayan
pesos). We also find that increasing the number of countries in a common currency tends to
increase its stability. The willingness of Mercosur countries to participate in a monetary union
is assessed from statistical moments of the density functions of the implied stable common
currency and its components.