IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cpr/ceprdp/13391.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Dominant Currency Debt

Author

Listed:
  • Malamud, Semyon
  • Eren, Egemen

Abstract

Why is the dollar the dominant currency for debt contracts and what are its macroeconomic implications? We develop an international general equilibrium model where firms optimally choose the currency composition of their debt. We show that there always exists a dominant currency debt equilibrium, in which all firms borrow in a single dominant currency. It is the currency of the country that effectively pursues aggressive expansionary monetary policy in global downturns, lowering real debt burdens of firms. We show that the dollar empirically fits this description, despite its short term safe haven properties. We provide further modern and historical empirical support for our mechanism across time and currencies. We use our model to study how the optimal monetary policy differs if the Federal Reserve reacts to global versus domestic conditions.

Suggested Citation

  • Malamud, Semyon & Eren, Egemen, 2018. "Dominant Currency Debt," CEPR Discussion Papers 13391, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    • Handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:13391
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://cepr.org/publications/DP13391
    Download Restriction: CEPR Discussion Papers are free to download for our researchers, subscribers and members. If you fall into one of these categories but have trouble downloading our papers, please contact us at subscribers@cepr.org
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Niepmann, Friederike & Schmidt-Eisenlohr, Tim, 2022. "Foreign currency loans and credit risk: Evidence from U.S. banks," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 135(C).
    2. Jean Imbs & Haroon Mumtaz & Morten O. Ravn & Hélène Rey, 2005. "PPP Strikes Back: Aggregation And the Real Exchange Rate," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 120(1), pages 1-43.
    3. Matteo Maggiori & Brent Neiman & Jesse Schreger, 2020. "International Currencies and Capital Allocation," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 128(6), pages 2019-2066.
    4. Bhagwan Chowdhry & Richard Roll & Yihong Xia, 2005. "Extracting Inflation from Stock Returns to Test Purchasing Power Parity," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(1), pages 255-276, March.
    5. Hélène Rey, 2001. "International Trade and Currency Exchange," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 68(2), pages 443-464.
    6. Gita Gopinath & Oleg Itskhoki & Roberto Rigobon, 2010. "Currency Choice and Exchange Rate Pass-Through," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(1), pages 304-336, March.
    7. Juan J. Cortina & Tatiana Didier & Sergio L. Schmukler, 2018. "Corporate debt maturity in developing countries: Sources of long and short‐termism," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 41(12), pages 3288-3316, December.
    8. Falk Bräuning & Victoria Ivashina, 2020. "Monetary Policy and Global Banking," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 75(6), pages 3055-3095, December.
    9. Xavier Gabaix & Matteo Maggiori, 2015. "International Liquidity and Exchange Rate Dynamics," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 130(3), pages 1369-1420.
    10. Chinn, Menzie D. & Ito, Hiro, 2006. "What matters for financial development? Capital controls, institutions, and interactions," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 81(1), pages 163-192, October.
    11. Linda S. Goldberg & Cédric Tille, 2013. "A bargaining theory of trade invoicing and pricing," Staff Reports 611, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
    12. Stefan Avdjiev & Valentina Bruno & Catherine Koch & Hyun Song Shin, 2019. "The Dollar Exchange Rate as a Global Risk Factor: Evidence from Investment," IMF Economic Review, Palgrave Macmillan;International Monetary Fund, vol. 67(1), pages 151-173, March.
    13. Ferrari, Massimo & Kearns, Jonathan & Schrimpf, Andreas, 2021. "Monetary policy’s rising FX impact in the era of ultra-low rates," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 129(C).
    14. Julian di Giovanni & Şebnem Kalemli-Özcan & Mehmet Fatih Ulu & Yusuf Soner Baskaya, 2022. "International Spillovers and Local Credit Cycles [Exchange Rate Dynamics and Monetary Spillovers with Imperfect Financial Markets]," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 89(2), pages 733-773.
    15. Emmanuel Farhi & Jean Tirole, 2012. "Collective Moral Hazard, Maturity Mismatch, and Systemic Bailouts," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(1), pages 60-93, February.
    16. Zhiguo He & Arvind Krishnamurthy & Konstantin Milbradt, 2019. "A Model of Safe Asset Determination," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 109(4), pages 1230-1262, April.
    17. Ricardo J. Caballero & Emmanuel Farhi & Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas, 2008. "An Equilibrium Model of "Global Imbalances" and Low Interest Rates," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(1), pages 358-393, March.
    18. Matteo Maggiori, 2017. "Financial Intermediation, International Risk Sharing, and Reserve Currencies," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 107(10), pages 3038-3071, October.
    19. Luigi Bocola & Guido Lorenzoni, 2020. "Financial Crises, Dollarization, and Lending of Last Resort in Open Economies," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 110(8), pages 2524-2557, August.
    20. Eugenio Cerutti & Stijn Claessens & Andrew K. Rose, 2019. "How Important is the Global Financial Cycle? Evidence from Capital Flows," IMF Economic Review, Palgrave Macmillan;International Monetary Fund, vol. 67(1), pages 24-60, March.
    21. Jiang, Zhengyang & Krishnamurthy, Arvind & Lustig, Hanno, 2018. "Dollar Safety and the Global Financial Cycle," Research Papers 3747, Stanford University, Graduate School of Business.
    22. Juliana Salomao & Liliana Varela, 2022. "Exchange Rate Exposure and Firm Dynamics [Credit Constraints and the Cyclicality of R&D Investment: Evidence from France]," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 89(1), pages 481-514.
    23. Tarek A. Hassan, 2013. "Country Size, Currency Unions, and International Asset Returns," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 68(6), pages 2269-2308, December.
    24. Oleg Itskhoki & Dmitry Mukhin, 2021. "Exchange Rate Disconnect in General Equilibrium," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 129(8), pages 2183-2232.
    25. Kiminori Matsuyama & Nobuhiro Kiyotaki & Akihiko Matsui, 1993. "Toward a Theory of International Currency," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 60(2), pages 283-307.
    26. Giancarlo Corsetti & Paolo Pesenti, 2015. "Endogenous Exchange-Rate Pass-through and Self-Validating Exchange Rate Regimes," Journal Economía Chilena (The Chilean Economy), Central Bank of Chile, vol. 18(3), pages 62-89, December.
    27. Ryan Chahrour & Rosen Valchev, 2017. "International Medium of Exchange: Privilege and Duty," Boston College Working Papers in Economics 934, Boston College Department of Economics.
    28. Rampini, Adriano A. & Sufi, Amir & Viswanathan, S., 2014. "Dynamic risk management," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 111(2), pages 271-296.
    29. Valentina Bruno & Hyun Song Shin, 2017. "Global Dollar Credit and Carry Trades: A Firm-Level Analysis," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 30(3), pages 703-749.
    30. Johnny Kang & Carolin E. Pflueger, 2015. "Inflation Risk in Corporate Bonds," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 70(1), pages 115-162, February.
    31. Froot, Kenneth A & Scharfstein, David S & Stein, Jeremy C, 1993. "Risk Management: Coordinating Corporate Investment and Financing Policies," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 48(5), pages 1629-1658, December.
    32. Charles Engel, 2006. "Equivalence Results for Optimal Pass-Through, Optimal Indexing to Exchange Rates, and Optimal Choice of Currency for Export Pricing," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 4(6), pages 1249-1260, December.
    33. Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas & Hélène Rey, 2007. "From World Banker to World Venture Capitalist: US External Adjustment and the Exorbitant Privilege," NBER Chapters, in: G7 Current Account Imbalances: Sustainability and Adjustment, pages 11-66, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    34. Favara, Giovanni & Morellec, Erwan & Schroth, Enrique & Valta, Philip, 2017. "Debt enforcement, investment, and risk taking across countries," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 123(1), pages 22-41.
    35. Valentina Bruno & Se-Jik Kim & Hyun Shin, 2018. "Exchange Rates and the Working Capital Channel of Trade Fluctuations," AEA Papers and Proceedings, American Economic Association, vol. 108, pages 531-536, May.
    36. Chang, Roberto & Velasco, Andres, 2006. "Currency mismatches and monetary policy: A tale of two equilibria," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(1), pages 150-175, June.
    37. Iñaki Aldasoro & Torsten Ehlers, 2018. "Global liquidity: changing instrument and currency patterns," BIS Quarterly Review, Bank for International Settlements, September.
    38. Gita Gopinath & Emine Boz & Camila Casas & Federico J. Díez & Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas & Mikkel Plagborg-Møller, 2020. "Dominant Currency Paradigm," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 110(3), pages 677-719, March.
    39. Aguiar, Mark, 2005. "Investment, devaluation, and foreign currency exposure: The case of Mexico," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 78(1), pages 95-113, October.
    40. Wenxin Du & Carolin E. Pflueger & Jesse Schreger, 2016. "Sovereign Debt Portfolios, Bond Risks, and the Credibility of Monetary Policy," NBER Working Papers 22592, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    41. Victoria Ivashina & David S. Scharfstein & Jeremy C. Stein, 2015. "Dollar Funding and the Lending Behavior of Global Banks," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 130(3), pages 1241-1281.
    42. Julien Hugonnier & Semyon Malamud & Erwan Morellec, 2015. "Capital Supply Uncertainty, Cash Holdings, and Investment," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 28(2), pages 391-445.
    43. Gita Gopinath, 2015. "The International Price System," NBER Working Papers 21646, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    44. Liliana Varela & Juliana Salomao, 2016. "Exchange Rate Exposure and Firm Dynamics," Working Papers 2016-278-05, Department of Economics, University of Houston.
    45. Chiţu, Livia & Eichengreen, Barry & Mehl, Arnaud, 2014. "When did the dollar overtake sterling as the leading international currency? Evidence from the bond markets," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 111(C), pages 225-245.
    46. Iñaki Aldasoro & Torsten Ehlers & Egemen Eren, 2018. "Business models and dollar funding of global banks," BIS Working Papers 708, Bank for International Settlements.
    47. Choi, Jaewon & Hackbarth, Dirk & Zechner, Josef, 2018. "Corporate debt maturity profiles," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 130(3), pages 484-502.
    48. Benjamin H Cohen, 2005. "Currency choice in international bond issuance," BIS Quarterly Review, Bank for International Settlements, June.
    49. Hyun Song Shin, 2012. "Global Banking Glut and Loan Risk Premium," IMF Economic Review, Palgrave Macmillan;International Monetary Fund, vol. 60(2), pages 155-192, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Johannes Matschke, 2021. "Macroprudential Policy Interlinkages," Research Working Paper RWP 21-10, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City.
    2. repec:zbw:bofitp:2021_011 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Joscha Beckmann & Mariarosaria Comunale, 2020. "Exchange rate fluctuations and the financial channel in emerging economies," Bank of Lithuania Working Paper Series 83, Bank of Lithuania.
    4. Matteo Maggiori & Brent Neiman & Jesse Schreger, 2019. "The Rise of the Dollar and Fall of the Euro as International Currencies," AEA Papers and Proceedings, American Economic Association, vol. 109, pages 521-526, May.
    5. Ca' Zorzi, Michele & Dedola, Luca & Georgiadis, Georgios & Jarociński, Marek & Stracca, Livio & Strasser, Georg, 2020. "Monetary policy and its transmission in a globalised world," Working Paper Series 2407, European Central Bank.
    6. Joscha Beckmann & Mariarosaria Comunale, 2020. "Exchange rate fluctuations and the financial channel in emerging economies," Bank of Lithuania Working Paper Series 83, Bank of Lithuania.
    7. Eren, Egemen & Malamud, Semyon, 2022. "Dominant currency debt," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 144(2), pages 571-589.
    8. Iñaki Aldasoro & Egemen Eren & Wenqian Huang, 2021. "Dollar funding of non-US banks through Covid-19," BIS Quarterly Review, Bank for International Settlements, March.
    9. Mauro Costantini & Ricardo M. Sousa, 2020. "Consumption, asset wealth, equity premium, term spread, and flight to quality," European Financial Management, European Financial Management Association, vol. 26(3), pages 778-807, June.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Eren, Egemen & Malamud, Semyon, 2022. "Dominant currency debt," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 144(2), pages 571-589.
    2. Gita Gopinath & Jeremy C Stein, 2021. "Banking, Trade, and the Making of a Dominant Currency," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 136(2), pages 783-830.
    3. Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas & Hélène Rey & Maxime Sauzet, 2019. "The International Monetary and Financial System," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 11(1), pages 859-893, August.
    4. Niepmann, Friederike & Schmidt-Eisenlohr, Tim, 2023. "Institutional investors, the dollar, and U.S. credit conditions," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 147(1), pages 198-220.
    5. Zhengyang Jiang & Arvind Krishnamurthy & Hanno Lustig, 2021. "Foreign Safe Asset Demand and the Dollar Exchange Rate," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 76(3), pages 1049-1089, June.
    6. Boermans, Martijn A. & Burger, John D., 2023. "Fickle emerging market flows, stable euros, and the dollar risk factor," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 142(C).
    7. Douglas W. Diamond & Yunzhi Hu & Raghuram G. Rajan, 2020. "The Spillovers from Easy Liquidity and the Implications for Multilateralism," IMF Economic Review, Palgrave Macmillan;International Monetary Fund, vol. 68(1), pages 4-34, March.
    8. Matteo Maggiori & Brent Neiman & Jesse Schreger, 2020. "International Currencies and Capital Allocation," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 128(6), pages 2019-2066.
    9. Juliana Salomao & Liliana Varela, 2022. "Exchange Rate Exposure and Firm Dynamics [Credit Constraints and the Cyclicality of R&D Investment: Evidence from France]," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 89(1), pages 481-514.
    10. Stijn Claessens & M Ayhan Kose, 2018. "Frontiers of macrofinancial linkages," BIS Papers, Bank for International Settlements, number 95.
    11. Matteo Maggiori & Brent Neiman & Jesse Schreger, 2019. "The Rise of the Dollar and Fall of the Euro as International Currencies," AEA Papers and Proceedings, American Economic Association, vol. 109, pages 521-526, May.
    12. Tao Liu & Dong Lu & Liang Wang, 2023. "Hegemony or Harmony? A Unified Framework for the International Monetary System," Working Papers 202305, University of Hawaii at Manoa, Department of Economics.
    13. Rodnyansky, A., 2018. "(Un)Competitive Devaluations and Firm Dynamics," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 1888, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    14. Bryan Hardy & Felipe Saffie, 2019. "From carry trades to trade credit: financial intermediation by non-financial corporations," BIS Working Papers 773, Bank for International Settlements.
    15. Müller, Gernot & Georgiadis, Georgios & Schumann, Ben, 2021. "Global Risk and the Dollar," CEPR Discussion Papers 16245, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    16. Maggiori, Matteo, 2021. "International Macroeconomics With Imperfect Financial Markets," SocArXiv z8g6r, Center for Open Science.
    17. Semyon Malamud & Andreas Schrimpf, 2018. "An intermediation-based model of exchange rates," BIS Working Papers 743, Bank for International Settlements.
    18. Hiro Ito & Cesar M. Rodriguez, 2020. "Clamoring for greenbacks: Explaining the resurgence of the U.S. dollar in international debt," International Finance, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 23(3), pages 370-391, December.
    19. Konstantin Egorov & Dmitry Mukhin, 2020. "Optimal Policy under Dollar Pricing," Working Papers w0261, New Economic School (NES).
    20. Javier Bianchi & Saki Bigio & Charles Engel, 2021. "Scrambling for Dollars: International Liquidity, Banks and Exchange Rates," Working Papers 786, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Dollar debt; Dominant currency; Exchange rates; inflation;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E44 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Financial Markets and the Macroeconomy
    • E52 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Monetary Policy
    • F33 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - International Monetary Arrangements and Institutions
    • F34 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - International Lending and Debt Problems
    • F41 - International Economics - - Macroeconomic Aspects of International Trade and Finance - - - Open Economy Macroeconomics
    • F42 - International Economics - - Macroeconomic Aspects of International Trade and Finance - - - International Policy Coordination and Transmission
    • F44 - International Economics - - Macroeconomic Aspects of International Trade and Finance - - - International Business Cycles
    • G01 - Financial Economics - - General - - - Financial Crises
    • G15 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - International Financial Markets
    • G32 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance - - - Financing Policy; Financial Risk and Risk Management; Capital and Ownership Structure; Value of Firms; Goodwill

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:13391. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cepr.org .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.