DOLLARIZATION IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES: RATIONAL REMEDY OR DOMESTIC DILEMMA?

This paper reviews the policy implications of dollarization in developing economies. It outlines channels of U.S. currency access abroad and illustrates progressing stages of dollarization for various country examples. It analyzes the costs of large seigniorage losses facing domestic governments vis-a-vis the U.S. issuer. Finally, it provides three explanations for the observed inertia in dedollarization following domestic stabilization policies: (i) high transactions costs of switching monies, (ii) dollar revenues related to illegal commercial activities, and (iii) network externalities associated with foreign currency usage.     

Deposit insurance,remittances, and dollarization: Survey‐based evidence from a top remittance‐receiving country

The study uses a unique survey of remittance‐receiving individuals from Tajikistan to study the impact of policy awareness on consumer behavior. The results show that knowledge of deposit insurance encourages the use of formal channels for transmitting remittances and reduces dollarization. Given the size and importance of remittances in Tajikistan, improving financial literacy and better publicizing details of the social safety net may encourage a more frequent use of formal channels for transferring remittances and reduce reliance on foreign exchange for transaction purposes. This is likely to improve bank profitability, enhance financial stability, and improve access to finance.     

Exchange Rate Policy and Liability Dollarization: What do the Data Reveal about Causality?

The paper identifies the contemporaneous relationship between exchange rate policy and liability dollarization using three different definitions of dollarization. The presence of endogeneity makes the empirical identification elusive. We use identification through heteroskedasticity to solve the endogeneity problem in the present context ( Rigobon, 2003 ). While we find that countries with high liability dollarization (external, public, or financial) tend to be more actively involved in exchange rate stabilization operations, we do not find evidence that floating, by itself, promotes de‐dollarization.     

A model of liability dollarization and myopic governments

Abstract

Liability dollarization of the domestic banking system represents a source of vulnerability for emerging market countries. The root cause is a lack of faith in the domestic currency, which ultimately stems from the belief that the government will not follow policies that promote long-run currency stability. This paper presents a model in which government myopia determines the unofficial dollarization of bank credit. Specifically, myopic politicians will choose low interest rates to expand short-run output in order to get re-elected, but this choice has the long-run consequence of increasing dollar lending. Increased liability dollarization is shown to force the hand of future decision-makers into choosing fixed exchange rates because of the fear that large depreciations will destroy balance sheets. The results imply that institutional reforms are necessary to reverse liability dollarization.     

On dollarization

The paper examines the case for dollarization in emerging market economies. It is claimed that dollarization becomes an attractive monetary regime when account is taken of recent financial turmoil in such economies. The case is further strengthened by the fact that these economies have a penchant for acquiring dollar debts (i.e., liability dollarization). However, exchange rate misalignment and deflation are potentially serious problems, unless appropriate fiscal and public sector prices policies are implemented, in addition to establishing a financial sector whose assets and liabilities face parallel relative price risks. JEL classification: F31, F41     

Do domestic bond markets participation help reduce financial dollarization in developing countries?

In this paper, I analyze the effect of domestic sovereign bond market (BM) participation on financial dollarization using a large panel of 114 developing countries over the period 1984–2009. Building on entropy balancing, my results reveal strong evidence that domestic BM participation significantly reduces financial dollarization in domestic BM countries compared to their non-domestic BM peers. Moreover, I find that the favorable impact of domestic BM on financial dollarization (i) is larger for inflation targeting countries compared to non-inflation targeting countries, (ii) is apparent exclusively in a non-pegged exchange rate regime, (iii) and is larger when there are fiscal rules that constrain the discretion of fiscal policy makers. Finally, I show that the induced drop in inflation rate and its variability, nominal exchange rate variability, and seigniorage revenue are potential transmission mechanisms through which the presence of domestic BM reduces financial dollarization in domestic BM countries.     

Exchange rate and inflation dynamics in dollarized economies

We use a panel of a hundred-plus countries with differing degrees of dollarization to perform an empirical analysis of the effects on inflation of exchange rate depreciations. The results qualify the common view that countries with higher dollarization exhibit higher inflation pass-through. We show that large depreciations tend to generate a negative impact on the pass-through coefficient, this impact being more intense the higher the level of dollarization of the economy. We interpret this as evidence that, in highly dollarized economies, the classic inflationary effects of a real depreciation—higher internal demand and imported inflation—can be offset or diminished by both the larger financial costs and the balance-sheet effect, especially if the depreciation is “large”. Additionally, the exchange rate regime is shown to matter: countries with fixed exchange rates suffer more noticeably the balance-sheet effects of large depreciations.     

Monetary policy in a dual currency environment

We develop a small open economy general equilibrium model with sticky prices and partial dollarization – a situation where both domestic and foreign currencies coexist. We derive a tractable representation of the model in terms of domestic inflation and the output gap in which a trade-off, which depends on the degree of dollarization, arises endogenously due to the presence of foreign interest rate shocks. We use this framework to show analytically how higher degrees of dollarization induce larger volatilities of the output gap and inflation, thus hampering a central bank’s effectiveness to stabilize the economy. Our impulse response functions show that the transmission of such shocks has a positive (negative) effect on inflation and negative (positive) effect on the output gap when money aggregates and consumption are complements (substitutes).     

Money and the rule of law in ecuador

The rule of law is defined and its implications in the monetary sphere are elaborated. When national monetary arrangements fail to comport with the rule of law, “dollarization” is desirable. That policy provides for more stable money and expectations about its future value. The salutary effects of Ecuador's “dollarization” program of 2000 are reviewed. In addition, a manifesto for economic reform in Ecuador is presented. Its elements are: financial integration, fiscal transparency and control, tax simplification and reform, supermajority voting, deregulation, and privatization.     

Fiscal sustainability and dollarization: the case of Ecuador

This article tries to disentangle the dynamic relationships between fiscal variables and economic activity in a small emerging economy characterized by full dollarization, namely, Ecuador. We find that fiscal policy in Ecuador seems to be sustainable, explained by its policy of debt payment through oil revenues, rather than by a fiscal discipline that dollarization is supposed to encourage. The non-oil tax revenues variable is a purely adjusting variable. This result suggests that in a dollarized country that cannot benefit from the ‘seignorage’ revenues, the reliance on volatile oil revenues and on smoothing tax revenues leaves the economy’s fiscal sustainability vulnerable.     

美元化与区域货币的合作关系

美元化是区域化在国际货币体系方面的一个重要体现,而作为一种事实、一种过程或政策,在各国民间或官方活动中,美元化已成为区域货币合作的一种重要方式.美元化既是区域货币合作发展的产物,另一方面它的发展也是区域货币合作的新实践,推动着区域货币合作的发展.各国在实施美元化的过程中应该注意强化本位货币作用和计价货币作用、外汇储备应保持适度规模和多样性以及发挥在区域经济合作中的作用.     

External discipline and financial stability

The paper examines the costs and benefits of external discipline (dollarization, foreign short-term debt) from the point of view of the stability of the financial system of an emergent/LDC economy. External discipline solves the time-inconsistency problem of central bank policy to help banks in trouble but at the cost of excessive liquidation of projects. The latter may be quite important when the danger of coordination failure of investors is large.     

拉美国家汇率制度选择及其成本-收益分析

1999年1月,阿根廷政府宣布其考虑将其经济美元化,此后,拉美国家出现了美元化趋势。美元化是拉美国家汇率制度的次优选择,且预示着国际汇率制的发展方向。对拉美美元化国家来说,美元化有利有弊,但利大于弊。     

汇率制度选择:基于随机效应多元排序probit模型的分析

选用13个影响汇率制度选择的典型变量,采用随机效应多元排序选择模型对147个国家的汇率制度选择进行分析,发现经济发展水平、美元化程度、货币错配程度越高,实际资本开放程度越大,政府越强,具有高经济增长和长期通货膨胀历史的国家有较高采用相对固定汇率制度的概率;而经济规模、贸易开放度越大以及外债债务比率越高将会促使一国选择灵活性较高的汇率制度。     

Monetary policy rules for financially vulnerable economies

One distinguishable characteristic of emerging market economies is that they are not financially robust. These economies are incapable of smoothing out large external shocks, as sudden capital outflows imply abrupt swings in the real exchange rate. Using a small open-economy model, this paper examines alternative monetary policy rules for economies with different degrees of liability dollarization. The paper answers the question of how efficient it is to use inflation targeting (IT) under high liability dollarization. Our findings suggest that it might be optimal to follow a nonlinear policy rule that defends the real exchange rate in a financially vulnerable economy.     

Dollarization and financial integration

How does a country's exchange rate regime impact its ability to borrow from abroad? We build a small open economy model in which the government responds to shocks by adjusting monetary policy and foreign borrowing. Sovereign borrowing is subject to endogenous limits, which ensure repayment when the default punishment corresponds to financial autarky. Dollarizing implies renouncing monetary policy, but can make access to international debt markets more valuable, thereby loosening borrowing constraints. This mechanism linking dollarization to financial integration is consistent with observed declines in spreads on foreign-currency debt in countries adopting the dollar or the euro.     

Bankruptcy costs, liability dollarization, and vulnerability to sudden stops

Countries with intermediate levels of institutional quality suffer larger output contractions following sudden stops of capital inflows than less developed nations. However, countries with strong institutions seldom experience significant falls in output after capital flow reversals. We reconcile these two observations using a calibrated DSGE model that extends the financial accelerator framework developed in Bernanke, Gertler and Gilchrist (1999). The model captures financial market institutional quality with creditors' ability to recover assets from bankrupt firms. Bankruptcy costs affect vulnerability to sudden stops directly but also indirectly by affecting the degree of liability dollarization. Simulations reveal an inverted U-shaped relationship between bankruptcy costs and the output loss following sudden stops.     

Solving the Currency Conundrum

This paper reviews the prospects for the exchange rate system in different parts of the world. It discounts radical changes like a single world currency and a trio of regional monetary unions: in Europe, where intergration is political as well as economic and financial, the euro should provide the basis for an expanding zone of monetary stability; in the Americas, in contrast, dollarization is likely to be the solution for countries with strong financial links to the USA that find it difficult to run an autonomous monetary policy; and in Asia, continued floating is the only plausible outcome, given the obstacles to the alternatives.
(J.E.L.: F3)     

Money demand and seignorage maximization before the end of the Zimbabwean dollar

The delayed end to Zimbabwe's hyperinflation in 2009 gave rise to an official dollarization. Before then, the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) operated on the correct side of the inflation tax Laffer curve. Estimated seignorage maximizing rates derive from Bayesian, time-varying parameter, structural vector autoregressions. Monthly changes in the ratio of prices for the Old Mutual insurance company's shares, which trade in London and Harare, serve as the measure of inflation from 1999 to 2008. Orthogonalized impulse response functions indicate that monthly seignorage maximizing rates ranged from 242% to 315% and exceeded all monthly inflation rates.     

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.