Dollarization: Is It Worth It?

▪ 2002

Introduction

by Guillermo A. Calvo

      By mid-2001 a number of Latin American countries had officially adopted the U.S. dollar as their currency. Ecuador replaced its sucre with the dollar in September 2000. On Jan. 1, 2001, El Salvador followed suit, and Guatemala elevated the dollar to equal status with its quetzal on May 1. Panama had been officially dollarized since the beginning of the 20th century. In 1999 Argentina had seriously considered adopting the dollar, but after much heated debate the proposal was dropped. Argentina had, however, already pegged its peso one-to-one with the U.S. dollar back in 1991. As Latin American countries continued to negotiate with the U.S. for a hemispheric trade agreement, the move to the dollar was expected only to accelerate.

Dollarization Costs.

      To many analysts the trend toward dollarization was unexpected, since adopting a new currency can be quite costly. One major expense is the loss of seigniorage, the profit that a country earns when it issues a currency. For example, the cost to the U.S. of printing its currency is estimated at less than 0.1% of the currency's face value, yet the notes are sold at face value to banks. If a foreign country dollarizes, it will no longer earn seigniorage and will have to buy the dollars—not an insubstantial budgetary consideration. In addition, a dollarized country will lack an independent monetary policy and, in particular, will not be capable of printing money to rescue banks in case of a liquidity crisis. Given these negatives, why would a country consider dollarization?

The Benefits.

      It is important to note that many countries in Latin America and elsewhere are already unofficially dollarized. In particular, countries that have experienced high and erratic inflation for long periods of time have tended to set prices in dollars (especially on big-ticket items like cars and real estate). Some governments have imposed controls on the use of the dollar, but they have proved to be very difficult to enforce. This phenomenon, where the dollar and a local currency circulate side by side, is called currency substitution. In places where currency substitution exists and the dollar is already legally recognized, conversion to a completely dollarized system will be relatively simple. Dollarized countries, in effect, import the monetary policy of the U.S. This usually results in the dropping of inflation rates toward U.S. levels. Already in Ecuador, for example, inflation has plummeted from more than 90% in 2000 to a projected rate of 30% in 2001. The drop in inflation rates and the elimination of the risk of devaluation, in turn, help boost domestic savings and attract foreign investment. Dollarization reduces interest-rate volatility as well. The monetary system stabilizes, and with less skittishness over possible devaluations, the risk of bank runs lessens—a situation common in economies that have exhibited poor monetary discipline.

Considerations for the U.S.

      Thus far the U.S. government has neither encouraged nor discouraged dollarization. The Federal Reserve has simply requested that it be notified in advance when a country plans such a move. Clearly, however, the more countries that use the U.S. dollar, the more the U.S. government stands to earn by gaining additional seigniorage revenue. Many experts have suggested that, in order to encourage dollarization, the U.S. could repay some of the seigniorage to countries that are officially dollarizing. This has the potential to create a “win-win” situation, with the U.S. benefiting from the expansion of the use of its currency and dollarized countries minimizing one of the biggest costs of replacing their currency. In 1999, in fact, U.S. Sen. Connie Mack put forward a proposal to share seigniorage with countries that adopt the dollar, but the bill did not pass out of committee.

To Dollarize or Not to Dollarize?

      The countries best suited for successful dollarization are those in which currency substitution already exists and that have ample international reserves. In many cases the reserves are so great that they would be sufficient to buy up the entire supply of domestic currency and thus dollarize.

      Dollarization costs will vary from country to country and from period to period, depending in part on the interest rates prevailing in the U.S. Estimates show that in most cases the seigniorage cost is less than 1% of a country's gross domestic product. Another possible drawback, however, is that once dollarization has been adopted, it may be hard to undo—i.e., to “de-dollarize.” In contrast, fixed exchange rates such as Argentina's can be modified at the stroke of a pen. There are circumstances in which a devaluation could help restore international competitiveness, as when an economy is faced with a sharp deterioration in its trade terms. This relative advantage of fixed exchange rates is lost, however, in periods in which devaluation does not take place. This is so because the knowledge that a devaluation could happen at any time leads to what has been called the “peso problem”—that is, domestic-currency interest rates substantially higher than dollar interest rates. For example, in Argentina interest rates for the peso have exceeded dollar domestic interest rates by about 3% during tranquil periods (and reached astronomical numbers during periods of turmoil). Two other issues that countries must consider before dollarizing are, first, the likelihood that larger amounts of counterfeit currency will surface and, second, that time and effort will be required for overcoming the resistance of a population to the conversion. Therefore, the decision to dollarize is not trivial or even straightforward, and each country's currency structure needs to be assessed on its own terms.

      The main experiment in currency replacement of modern times is the adoption of the euro simultaneously by several countries in the European Union (EU), a process that started in 1999 and will come to fruition in 2002 as euro bills and coins begin to circulate. The EU machinery provides for member countries to share seigniorage, and access to credit lines is available if a member state finds itself in a liquidity crunch. The several countries involved have agreed to coordinate banking regulations. It is too early to tell how the system will operate, but sharply lower interest rates have already been registered in Italy and Spain, countries that prior to the adoption of the euro suffered from the peso problem. Actually, lower interest rates account for much of the fiscal adjustment that Italy had to implement to comply with the Maastricht Treaty, which outlined the EU's economic unification. In contrast to the situation in the EU, dollarization is being considered in the less-developed world mostly by individual countries and is therefore more costly. The issue of dollarization is certain to resurface in connection with the negotiations for the Free Trade Area of the Americas, a scheme that will extend the North American Free Trade Agreement to the entire hemisphere. Countries that belong to a large free-trade area and share the same currency can be less concerned about the vagaries of the exchange rate. For them, dollarization will be attractive.

Guillermo A. Calvo is chief economist at the Inter-American Development Bank in Washington, D.C., and director of the Center for International Economics at the University of Maryland. Opinions are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of the institutions with which he is affiliated.

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