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Official Dollarization as a Monetary Regime: Its Effects on El Salvador

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  • Andrew Swiston
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    Abstract

    This paper examines El Salvador's transition to official dollarization by comparing aspects of this regime to the fixed exchange rate regime prevailing in the 1990s. Commercial bank interest rates are analyzed under an uncovered interest parity framework, and it is found that dollarization lowered rates by 4 to 5 percent by reducing currency risk. This has generated net annual savings averaging percent of GDP for the private sector and percent of GDP for the public sector (net of the losses from foregone seigniorage). Estimated Taylor rules show a strong positive association between Salvadoran output and U.S. Federal Reserve policy since dollarization, implying that this policy has served to stabilize economic activity more than it did under the peg and more than policy rates in Central American countries with independent monetary policy have done. Dollarization does not appear to have affected the transmission mechanism, as pass-through of monetary policy to commercial interest rates has been similar to pass-through under the peg and in the rest of Central America.

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    Bibliographic Info

    Paper provided by International Monetary Fund in its series IMF Working Papers with number 11/129.

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    Length: 56
    Date of creation: 01 Jun 2011
    Date of revision:
    Handle: RePEc:imf:imfwpa:11/129

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    Related research

    Keywords: Dollarization; Commercial banks; Currency pegs; Economic models; Interest rates;

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    References

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    1. Andrew Swiston, 2010. "Spillovers to Central America in Light of the Crisis: What a Difference a Year Makes," IMF Working Papers 10/35, International Monetary Fund.
    2. Frankel, Jeffrey A & Rose, Andrew K, 1996. "The Endogeneity of the Optimum Currency Area Criteria," CEPR Discussion Papers 1473, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    3. André Van Poeck & Jacques Vanneste & Maret Veiner, 2007. "Exchange Rate Regimes and Exchange Market Pressure in the New EU Member States," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 45, pages 459-485, 06.
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    6. Carl E. Walsh, 2009. "Inflation Targeting: What Have We Learned?," International Finance, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 12(2), pages 195-233, 08.
    7. Ball, Laurence, 2010. "The Performance of Alternative Monetary Regimes," Handbook of Monetary Economics, in: Benjamin M. Friedman & Michael Woodford (ed.), Handbook of Monetary Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 23, pages 1303-1343 Elsevier.
    8. Aasim M. Husain & Ashoka Mody & Nienke Oomes & Robin Brooks & Kenneth Rogoff, 2003. "Evolution and Performance of Exchange Rate Regimes," IMF Working Papers 03/243, International Monetary Fund.
    9. Edwards, Sebastian & Magendzo, I. Igal, 2006. "Strict Dollarization and Economic Performance: An Empirical Investigation," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 38(1), pages 269-282, February.
    10. Alessandro Rebucci & Marco A Espinosa-Vega, 2003. "Retail Bank Interest Rate Pass-Through: Is Chile Atypical?," IMF Working Papers 03/112, International Monetary Fund.
    11. Benoît Mojon, 2000. "Financial structure and the interest rate channel of ECB monetary policy," Working Paper Series 40, European Central Bank.
    12. Pierre Siklos & Martin Bohl, 2009. "Asset Prices as Indicators of Euro Area Monetary Policy: An Empirical Assessment of Their Role in a Taylor Rule," Open Economies Review, Springer, vol. 20(1), pages 39-59, February.
    13. David F. Hendry & Bent Nielsen, 2007. "Preface to Econometric Modeling: A Likelihood Approach," Introductory Chapters, in: Econometric Modeling: A Likelihood Approach Princeton University Press.
    14. Schmukler, Sergio L. & Serven, Luis, 2002. "Pricing currency risk under currency boards," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(2), pages 367-391, December.
    15. David F. Hendry & Bent Nielsen, 2007. "The Bernoulli model, from Econometric Modeling: A Likelihood Approach," Introductory Chapters, in: Econometric Modeling: A Likelihood Approach Princeton University Press.
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    1. Dollarization
      by UDADISI in UDADISI on 2012-07-09 01:44:00

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