1. Assessing Economic Exposure Alaska, Inc., plans to create and finance a subsidiary in Mexico that produces computer components at a low cost and exports them to other countries. It has no other international business. The subsidiary will produce computers and export them to Caribbean islands and will invoice the products in U.S. dollars. The values of the currencies in the islands are expected to remain very stable against the dollar. The subsidiary will pay wages, rent, and other operating costs in Mexican pesos. The subsidiary will remit earnings monthly to the parent.

a. Would Alaska's cash flows be favorably or unfavorably affected if the Mexican peso depreciates over time?

b. Assume that Alaska considers partial financing of this subsidiary with peso loans from Mexican banks instead of providing all the financing with its own funds. Would this alternative form of financing increase, decrease, or have no effect on the degree to which Alaska is exposed to exchange rate movements of the peso?

2. Hedging Continual Exposure Clearlake, Inc., produces its products in its factory in Texas and exports most of the products to Mexico each month. The exports are denominated in pesos. Clearlake recognizes that hedging on a monthly basis does not really protect against long-term movements in exchange rates. It also recognizes that it could eliminate its transaction exposure by denominating the exports in dollars, but that it still would have economic exposure (because Mexican consumers would reduce demand if the peso weakened). Clearlake does not know how many pesos it will receive in the future, so it would have difficulty even if a long-term hedging method were available. How can Clearlake realistically deal with this dilemma and reduce its exposure over the long term? (There is no perfect solution, but in the real world, there rarely are perfect solutions.)