The Persistence Of Dollarization Processes

This volume engages with the roots, dimensions, and implications of foreign currency domination in states with a national currency. Referred to as unofficial dollarization in literature, this is a worldwide phenomenon among developing countries and has a long history. This monograph provides a political economic analysis of dollarization in Georgia and is structured around three themes: the genesis of dollarization (1991–2003), the persistence of dollarization (2003–12) and the politicization of dollarization (2012–19). The case of Georgia is especially representative of the post-socialist transition states, but also has wider applicability. A high level of dollarization is a significant barrier to economic growth, macroeconomic and political stability, functional monetary policy, as well as social welfare. The Covid-19 crisis and the increasing debt of developing countries in foreign currency exacerbate dollarization-related vulnerabilities for these economies. This book will be of interest to postgraduate students in global/comparative political economy, development economics or transition economies, researchers in monetary sovereignty, central banking, exchange rate policies, currency hierarchy, money, financialization, and policy makers in dollarized countries and global institutions.

The most salient feature of financial dollarization, and the one that causes more concern to policymakers, is its persistence: even after successful macroeconomic stabilizations, dollarization ratios often remain high. In this paper we claim that this persistence is connected to the fact that the participants in the dollar deposit market are fairly heterogenous, and so is the way they form their optimal currency portfolios. We develop a simple model when agents differ in their ability to process information, which turns out to be enough to generate persistence upon aggregation. We find empirical support for this claim with data from three Latin American countries and Poland.

This book brings together an impressive and diverse group of authors to discuss its central theme: whether or not the dollarized international monetary system is sustainable in the context of the global economy it helped create. In addition to its uniquely well-rounded and comprehensive coverage of the issues, this lively and highly readable volume provides an accurate assessment of the lack of consensus in the current debate. A must read for anyone interested in currency crises and the increasing vulnerability of the dollar. Jane D Arista, Director of Progams, Financial Markets Center, US This book deals with the economic consequences of monetary integration, which has long been dominated by the Optimal Currency Area (OCA) paradigm. In this model, money is perceived as having developed from a private sector cost minimization process to facilitate transactions. Not surprisingly, the book argues, the main advantage of monetary integration in the OCA context is the reduction of transaction costs, yet the validity of OCA to analyze processes of monetary integration seems to be limited at best. The contributors in this volume try to go beyond the OCA model and understand the political economy of monetary integration by comparing the European Monetary Union with the dollarization (formal and informal) process in Latin America. The contributors, many of whom are leading lights, reflect the disagreements and the changing views on the proper monetary arrangements in a globalized world and suggest that monetary integration and dollarization are not the solution for the great majority of countries around the world. Monetary Integration and Dollarization brings together mainstream and heterodox views of monetary integration and uses the European and North American experiences as a guide for the discussion of dollarization in developing countries. It will appeal to scholars, researchers and policy makers in the fields of financial and international economics.

The IMF Working Papers series is designed to make IMF staff research available to a wide audience. Almost 300 Working Papers are released each year, covering a wide range of theoretical and analytical topics, including balance of payments, monetary and fiscal issues, global liquidity, and national and international economic developments.

Credit contracts in developing countries are often denominated in foreign currencies, even after many of these economies succeeded incontrolling inflation. This paper proposes a new interpretation of this apparent puzzle based on the demand for insurance against real shocks: The fact that devaluations occur more frequently in adverse states of the world provides a motive for holding dollar assets. This approach implies a complementarity between the optimal monetary policy and the currency denomination of contracts. When a large proportion of liabilities is denominated in a foreign currency, the optimal exchange rate volatility is low, which reinforces the demand for dollar assets.

The paper conducts a comparative study of the monetary policy transmission in two economies that run a well-established IT regime, Chile and New Zealand, vis-à-vis two economies operating under relatively newer IT regimes, and which are exposed to a significant degree of dollarization, Peru and Uruguay. It is shown that the traditional interest rate channel is effective in Chile and New Zealand. For Peru and Uruguay, the exchange rate channel is instead more relevant in the transmission of monetary policy. This latter result follows from the limited impact of the policy rate in curbing inflationary pressures in these two countries, in combination with the fact that they have a relatively large and persistent exchange rate pass through. Finally, it is shown that the on-going de-dollarization process of Peru and Uruguay has somewhat strengthened their monetary transmission through the interest rate channel.

This paper identifies key aspects that countries willing to officially dollarize must necessarily address. Based on country experiences, it discusses the critical institutional bases that are necessary to unilaterally introduce a new legal tender, describes the relevant operational issues to smooth the transition toward the use of the new currency, and identifies key structural reforms that are necessary to favor the sustainability over time of this monetary regime. The paper is aimed at providing preliminary guidance to policy makers and practitioners adopting official dollarization. The paper does not take a position on how appropriate this monetary arrangement is. Experiences from adopting dollarization in Ecuador, El Salvador, Kosovo, Montenegro, and Timor-Leste are illustrated briefly.