CARACAS, Venezuela—President Nicolás Maduro’s authoritarian government, long a practitioner of tight state control of the economy, has quietly and cautiously begun implementing free-market policies to tame hyperinflation and correct an economic contraction worse than America’s Great Depression. So far, that approach is providing a sliver of light to the moribund economy.
In recent months, the regime has scaled back its once frenzied printing of money, nearly ended frequent salary hikes, and largely stopped enforcing the price...