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Is the accumulation of international reserves good for development?

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  • Moritz Cruz
  • Bernard Walters
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    Abstract

    International reserves accumulation has been the preferred policy recently adopted by developing economies to achieve financial stability. The aim of this policy is to increase liquidity and thus reduce the risk of suffering a speculative attack. The main concern expressed in the literature has been related to its cost. Most of the studies conclude that the opportunity cost of international reserves accumulation is around 1% of GDP. However, these studies have not analysed whether this strategy is, or could be, more broadly supportive of development, an issue that must be of central interest for developing economies. The aim of this paper is to show that the stockpiling of international reserves is not optimal for developmental purposes and that there exist alternative policies that can be applied to achieve financial stability, policy autonomy and a better performance in terms of development. Copyright The Author 2008. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Cambridge Political Economy Society. All rights reserved., Oxford University Press.

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    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/cje/ben028
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    Bibliographic Info

    Article provided by Oxford University Press in its journal Cambridge Journal of Economics.

    Volume (Year): 32 (2008)
    Issue (Month): 5 (September)
    Pages: 665-681

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    Handle: RePEc:oup:cambje:v:32:y:2008:i:5:p:665-681

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    As found by EconAcademics.org, the blog aggregator for Economics research:
    1. Reservas internacionales, un debate necesario
      by in Tiempo Económico on 2012-07-16 09:47:07
    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
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    Cited by:
    1. Moritz Cruz & Peter Kriesler, 2010. "International Reserves, Effective Demand and Growth," Review of Political Economy, Taylor and Francis Journals, vol. 22(4), pages 569-587.
    2. Anna M. Carabelli & Mario A. Cedrini, 2009. "Indian Currency and Beyond. The Legacy of the Early Economics of Keynes in the Times of Bretton Woods II," Working Papers 121, SEMEQ Department - Faculty of Economics - University of Eastern Piedmont.
    3. André Nassif & Carmem Feijó & Marco Antônio Silveira De Almeida, 2011. "Why Does Real Exchange Rate Overvalue Inbrazil? Theoretical Determinants, Empirical Evidence And Economicpolicy Dilemmas," Anais do XXXVIII Encontro Nacional de Economia [Proceedings of the 38th Brazilian Economics Meeting] 237, ANPEC - Associação Nacional dos Centros de Pósgraduação em Economia [Brazilian Association of Graduate Programs in Economics].
    4. Mei-yin Lin, 2011. "Foreign Reserves and Economic Growth: Granger Causality Analysis with Panel Data," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 31(2), pages 1563-1575.

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