We study the impact of dollarization and related economic liberalization of Ecuador in January 2000 on the distribution of stock returns in Ecuador. While the mean dollar return of investing in Ecuadorian stocks changed from large and negative to large and positive, traditional measures of volatility such as the SD of returns actually increased after dollarization. However, focusing on the tails of the distribution and extreme events, we find that the tail thickness of the distribution of Ecuador stock returns increased for positive returns but decreased for negative returns. Thus, while the SD may have increased, it is because of a greater probability of large positive returns. The probability of large negative returns decreased post dollarization. Value at Risk estimates illustrates this phenomenon.
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version under "Related research" (further below) or search for a different version of it.