The American external seigniorage: Origin,cost to Europe,and possible defences

External seigniorage is defined as the advantage resulting, for a country, from the fact that it may impose the use of its own currency on seemingly independent countries. In 1960, the United States had to resort to this device as a consequence of the dollar glut. Since then, European countries were gradually compelled to hold on to 20 billion dollars, receiving short-term interest rates for what were in fact long-term loans to America — with capital and interest losses over 13 years of 9 billions of 1972 dollars. This will stop only when the Europeans create and use their common currency.