Monetary union in Latin America: an assessment in the context of optimum currency area

The article applies the optimum currency area (OCA) theory to Latin America to assess the potential of a monetary union in Latin America and in its major existing regional trade agreements (RTAs). According to OCA criteria we find that Latin America is far from being an optimum currency area, as its countries’ exposure to asymmetric shocks is high and their capacities to adjust in response to macroeconomic disturbances are limited. Using a panel of 20 Latin American countries from 1990 to 2014, we apply the dynamic OLS estimation techniques to estimate the costs and benefits of a potential monetary union in Latin America and in its various RTAs. to estimate the costs and benefits of a potential monetary union in Latin America and in its various RTAs. We find that the costs are high, because Latin America’s economies are vulnerable to severe macroeconomic disturbances and its RTAs differ significantly in their response to negative demand shocks. Most of the monetary efficiency gains are shown to be the result of a common restrictive monetary policy which would result in higher FDI inflows and, to a more limited extent, increased GDP, both overall and per capita. Although Central American countries are shown to be most suitable for further monetary integration, we conclude that Latin American countries should head first towards greater economic and political integration.     

EMU in Reality: The Effect of a Common Monetary Policy on Economies with Different Transmission Mechanisms

The theory of optimal currency areas states that a single currency zone should have symmetry of shocks and structures across regions. Research on monetary union in Europe has either assumed these conditions to hold close enough not to cause problems, or has focussed on asymmetries in shocks. But what if economic structures and/or market responses differ between countries or regions? This paper examines the consequences of a single monetary policy when there are asymmetries in i) the monetary transmissions; ii) the wage/price transmissions; and iii) private sector asset holdings. We find the first and last destabilise the business cycle, and put countries out of phase with one another in a way that cannot be corrected by deficit constrained fiscal policies. The effect is to delay convergence.     

European Monetary Integration and Aggregate Relative Deprivation: The Dull Side of the Shiny Euro

Drawing on the premise that the integration of economies revises people's social space and their comparators, we quantify social stress by aggregate relative deprivation, ARD; we calculate the effect of monetary mergers on ARD; and we document the validity of the superadditivity property of ARD for successive adoptions of a common currency by European countries. One feature of monetary unification, which replaces diverse currencies with a common currency, is that it brings about a change in the comparison environment, expanding the reference space of individuals in a given country to encompass individuals from the joining countries. Overall, calculations regarding six enlargements of the Economic and Monetary Union between 1999 and 2011 reveal an increase of ARD on six occasions when we hold incomes constant, and on five when we take into consideration changes in incomes. In addition, we observe an uneven distribution of the costs and benefits from monetary integration among the participating countries when these costs and benefits are measured in terms of ARD.     

Commitment and the adoption of a common currency*

In contrast to Mundell's inquiry on the optimality of currency areas, this article aims to understand under what circumstances a Pareto‐dominant monetary union will be established. Using a multicountry overlapping generations model, we highlight gains from monetary union arising from reduced transactions costs and lower inflation. Despite these gains, countries acting independently will impose barriers to exchange through local currency restrictions, thereby creating transactions costs and providing an incentive for inflation. Therefore, the gains from monetary union are most likely to be lost without collective effort.     

New EU member states and the Euro: economic readiness,benefits and costs

All of the new EU member states (NMSs) have made a commitment to adopt the Euro. This essay considers the countries’ economic readiness to adopt the Euro as well as the economic benefits and costs of adoption. Paper applies a method suggested by Bayoumi and Eichengreen (1997) and finds that the changes of real effective exchange rates between the Euro area and the new EU member states follow the pattern predicted by the optimum currency area theory. This finding allows the construction of the readiness for adoption index for every NMS. The tangible benefits (for NMSs) of adoption are also examined in this essay. Analyses suggest that the costs of currency exchange and hedging against the uncertainty in foreign exchange markets account for about 0.08–0.012% of the countries’ GDP. In addition, countries that adopt the Euro might expect lower inflation and interest rates. This essay also examines the possible costs of adoption. These are in the forms of the lost ability to use monetary policy tools and set the level of seigniorage. Analysis suggests that many countries had given up their independence over monetary policy even before the accession to the EU. In addition, bigger NMSs have not used seigniorage as the source of fiscal income. However, they used exchange rate flexibility to depreciate their currencies during the recent crisis.     

Monetary union or currency competition? Currency arrangements for monetary stability in East and West

Recent events in the European Monetary System on the one hand and monetary disintegration in the former Soviet Union on the other hand have revived interest in the question of how to design and choose a monetary regime for both parts of Europe that ensures monetary stability. The objective of monetary stability can be achieved either by complete monetary union or by currency competition. Building on Hayek's ideas, I argue that both regimes are viable solutions depending on the circumstances. The paper first focuses on the misperceived benefits of flexible exchange rates, making the case for monetary union in Western Europe. However, monetary union is no alternative for Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. Instead currency competition could be used to retain the benefits of flexible exchange rates and to foster monetary stability at the same time.     

Assessing independent monetary policy in small, open and euroized countries: evidence from Western Balkan

This article approaches to the optimum currency area from the empirical side by investigating the costs of adoption of a single currency for small, open and euroized Western Balkan countries (WBC). Using several econometric techniques, this study attempts to answer three questions relevant for monetary integration of the WBC and similar transition countries: What are the constraints on an independent monetary policy? What is the need for operating an independent monetary policy? and What is the ability to conduct an independent monetary policy? The constraints on independent monetary policy in most of the WBC at this stage are relatively serious because of high levels of openness and euroization. They limit the ability of the central bank, which is oriented to price stability, to use the nominal exchange rate for achieving other goals (for example, output stabilization). Regarding the second question, the results from structural VAR framework suggest a low synchronization for supply and demand shocks between the WBC and the euro area, indicating potentially high costs of losing independent monetary policy. Furthermore, the results from Kalman filter technique inform that the shock convergence process is slow or absent in the WBC vis-à-vis the euro area. Regarding the last question, the results from cointegration and VAR analysis suggest that the ability to conduct an independent monetary policy, assessed by analyzing the interest rate channel as the most prominent transmission channel in the euro area, is relatively weak in the WBC.     

Exchange rate regimes and inflation: only hard pegs make a difference

Abstract.  Using data from a large sample of developing countries from 1985 to 2001, we confirm that hard pegs (currency boards or a shared currency) reduce inflation and money growth. There is no evidence that soft pegs confer any monetary discipline, after other factors are controlled for. Inflation triggers regime switches. Under hard pegs, monetary growth is unaffected by fiscal deficits or by inflation shocks. Under soft pegs, as under floats, increased fiscal deficits and positive inflation shocks are associated with higher monetary growth. The apparently slower per capita output growth under hard pegs is explained by their geographical distribution. JEL classification: F41     

Do Currency Unions Grow Too Large For Their Own Good?

This article puts a rigorous foundation under the proposition that currency areas, as they admit more members, face a rising marginal cost curve which cuts the marginal benefit curve from below. However, at any given time, the median member faces lower marginal cost than the average member, so that, if new members are admitted by majority vote, and existing members are myopic, the currency area will expand beyond its optimum size. Although the currency area imposes negative externalities on countries outside it, we find that the existence of one currency union has no effect on the costs or benefits of forming or enlarging another.     

Do Monetary Unions Make Economic Sense? Evidence from the Scandinavian Currency Union, 1873–1913

Popular propositions as to what constitutes a successful single currency area are examined by looking at the Scandinavian Currency Union (1873–1913) formed by Denmark, Norway and Sweden. Applying a frequently used indicator of the desirability of monetary union, we study the symmetry of country-specific structural shocks (measured net of the non-Scandinavian influence) in these three countries. It is found that country-specific shocks are not highly symmetric. This conclusion is also supported by the absence of clear-cut differences between the pattern of structural shocks in Belgium and structural shocks in the Scandinavian countries. This suggests that the three Scandinavian countries did not form an optimum currency area during the period 1873–1913.
JEL classification : F 15; F 33; N 13     

Co‐Movement Towards a Currency or Monetary Union? An Empirical Study for New Zealand

This paper analyses whether New Zealand would be ready to form a currency or monetary union with either Australia, the 11 EU countries that are members of the EMU, Japan, or the US, if the criteria that have been used by researchers for the EMU are applied. The analysis is an empirical study with data from the mid 1980s to 1998, using cointegration techniques to search for co-movement and convergence in key economic variables: interest rates, inflation rates, exchange rates, real GDP, and current-account/GDP ratios.     

Asymmetric Shocks and Monetary Policy in a Currency Union

We analyze the conduct of monetary policy in a currency union in the face of asymmetric shocks. In particular, we compare the stabilization properties of a currency union versus alternative exchange rate arrangements. The relative performance of a currency union is shown to depend on the extent of economic integration in patterns of consumption and production and on the relative weights placed on price stability versus employment stability in the monetary authority's objective function.
JEL classification : F 33; F 40     

The Monetary Dimensions of Colonialism: Why did Imperial Powers Create Currency Blocks?

In the last few years, northern policymakers are increasingly interested in creating regional currency blocs which link their respective monetary systems more closely to those of nearby poorer 'southern' countries. To what extent does this new interest signal a kind of monetary 'neo-colonialism'? As a starting point for answering this question, I examine the motives that drove imperial powers in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to launch monetary reforms in their colonies which created giant currency blocs centred around each of their respective home currencies. I argue that colonial monetary reforms were driven by diversity of goals that related to: (1) international transaction costs; (2) domestic transaction costs within the colonies; (3) macroeconomic influence; (4) seigniorage; and (5) political identities. I conclude that there are similarities - although they should not be overstated - between some of these motivations and those driving the new interest in giant currency blocs today.     

Monetary union in West Africa: who might gain,who might lose,and why?

Abstract.  We develop a model in which governments' financing needs exceed the socially optimal level because public resources are diverted to serve the narrow interests of the group in power. From a social welfare perspective, this results in undue pressure on the central bank to extract seigniorage. Monetary policy also suffers from an expansive bias, owing to the authorities' inability to precommit to price stability. Such a conjecture about the fiscal‐monetary policy mix appears quite relevant in Africa, with deep implications for the incentives of fiscally heterogeneous countries to form a currency union. We calibrate the model to data for West Africa and use it to assess proposed ECOWAS monetary unions. Fiscal heterogeneity indeed appears critical in shaping regional currency blocs that would be mutually beneficial for all their members. In particular, Nigeria's membership in the configurations currently envisaged would not be in the interests of other ECOWAS countries unless it were accompanied by effective containment on Nigeria's financing needs. JEL classification: E58, E61, E62, F33     

Semi-Nonparametric Estimates of Currency Substitution: the Demand for Sterling in Europe

The paper presents new evidence of significant substitution between European domestic monetary assets and foreign holdings of sterling. The finding of significant cross‐country currency substitution implies reduced costs of transition towards monetary union and easier European policy convergence. Elasticities of substitution, using the Morishima measure, are estimated from the semi‐nonparametric Fourier flexible form.     

West African Currency Unions: Rationale and Sustainability

Drawing on the recent literature and experience of monetaryintegration in Europe, the paper examines the rationale forestablishing regional currency unions in western Africa. Despitedramatic economic, political and historical differences betweenthe two regions, the analysis indicates that monetary unificationmight well be beneficial for a number of the member states ofthe Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). Themain reason is that the costs stemming from the loss of monetaryautonomy are often more than offset by the gains originatingin the (partial) separation of monetary and fiscal powers. However,large countries with relatively ambitious public expenditureobjectives would not be attractive partners because they wouldbe expected to pressure the common central bank, creating excessiveinflation in the entire union. Hence, the desirability and sustainabilityof a currency union critically depends on fiscal disciplineamong its members. We also explore the vulnerability of regionalmonetary institutions to country-specific disturbances. Overall,the desirability of an ECOWAS monetary union requires a strongfiscal surveillance procedure both in the transition phase andafter the establishment of the union. (JEL E58, E61, F42)     

Productivity in the euro area: any evidence of convergence?

Sizable prevailing real economic disparities among countries in a currency union potentially involve costs for those countries for which the aggregate policy stance is not appropriate. This paper contributes to the literature by testing for productivity convergence among euro area countries. While no convergence can be found on the aggregate level, selected service sectors and manufacturing sub-industries indicate evidence of convergence. In a search for factors influencing productivity, investments in research and development as well as a high skill level of employees are shown to be beneficial, whereas regulations constitute a burden.     

VEHICLE CURRENCY*

Historically, the world economy has been dominated by a single currency accepted in the exchange of goods and assets among countries. In recent decades, the U.S. dollar has played this role. The dollar acts as a “vehicle currency” in the sense that agents in nondollar economies will generally engage in currency trade indirectly using the U.S. dollar instead of using direct bilateral trade among their own currencies. A vehicle currency is desirable when there are transactions costs of exchange. This article constructs a dynamic general equilibrium model of a vehicle currency. We explore the nature of the efficiency gains arising from a vehicle currency and show how it depends on the total number of currencies in existence, the size of the vehicle currency economy, and the monetary policy followed by the vehicle currency’s government. We find that there can be significant welfare gains to a vehicle currency in a system of many independent currencies. But these gains are asymmetrically weighted toward the residents of the vehicle currency country. The survival of a vehicle currency places natural limits on the monetary policy of the vehicle currency country.     

Credible Currency: A Constitutional Perspective

By contrast to private banks, public monetary authorities – central banks and currency boards – have limited credibility in making redemption or fixed-exchange-rate commitments. Their sovereign immunity obviates legal penalties for devaluing, and their monopoly status weakens reputational penalties. The softness of central bank promises invites speculative attack and currency crises. Privatization and decentralization of exchange-rate commitments provides a more credible currency by making redemption commitments legally enforceable and reputable. This contrast sheds light on (1) the breakdown of the classical gold standard and (2) the costs and benefits of dollarization. JEL Classification: E42, H42.     

Persistence and stochastic convergence of euro area unemployment rates*

This paper analyzes unemployment rates in the euro area (EA) countries to test for EA-related benefits and economic integration of the EA in the form of lower unemployment rates and unemployment rates convergence. We employ recently developed unit root tests with structural breaks and non-normal errors to analyze the persistence, test the stochastic convergence and locate structural break(s) in EA unemployment rates from 1995q1 to 2016q2. Our results imply a certain degree of unemployment hysteresis in the EA. Even though the results support the stochastic convergence of the majority of EA countries, we find that EA membership is not a sufficient condition for stochastic convergence. Nevertheless, EA-related breaks are followed by the periods of convergence to the EA11 average. Crisis-related breaks are followed by the periods of divergence. Although providing initial benefits, EA is not functioning as an optimal currency area.