Exchange rate regimes

• April 22, 2005

  Borders, Common Currencies, Trade, and Welfare: What Can We Learn from the Evidence?

  Bank of Canada Review - Spring 2005 John F. Helliwell, Lawrence L. Schembri

  Recent evidence indicates that the intensity of economic exchange within and across borders is significantly different: linkages are much tighter within, than among, nation-states. These findings, however, do not necessarily imply that borders and separate national currencies represent significant barriers to trade that should be removed, since the evidence is also consistent with the alternative hypothesis, that domestic exchange is more efficient because domestic producers are better able to satisfy the requirements of local consumers, owing to common tastes and institutions and the existence of local information and social networks. Focusing primarily on trade linkages within and between Canada and the United States, the authors review the evidence on the extent to which national borders lessen the intensity of international economic linkages, primarily trade in goods and services, and the effects on domestic welfare. They also examine the evidence on the impact of common currencies on trade and welfare. They determine that, since the empirical models employed to date in this research cannot distinguish between alternative explanations of the evidence, it is not yet possible to draw firm conclusions for policy-making.

  Content Type(s): Publications, Bank of Canada Review articles Topic(s): Exchange rate regimes, International topics, Monetary policy framework

• The Transmission of World Shocks to Emerging-Market Countries: An Empirical Analysis

  Staff Working Paper 2004-44 Brigitte Desroches

  The first step in designing effective policies to stabilize an economy is to understand business cycles. No country is isolated from the world economy and external shocks are becoming increasingly important.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Exchange rate regimes, International topics, Monetary policy transmission JEL Code(s): E, E3, E30, E32, E6, E61, F, F0, F02
• August 21, 2003

  Dollarization in Canada: An Update

  Bank of Canada Review - Summer 2003 John Murray, James Powell, Louis-Robert Lafleur

  The authors describe a special survey of the payment and financial-reporting practices of Canadian firms conducted by the Bank of Canada's regional offices to determine if the U.S. dollar has started to displace the Canadian dollar as a preferred unit of account. A cross-section of firms was asked what currency (or currencies) they used: (i) for quoting sales to Canadian customers, (ii) for quoting prices to foreigners, (iii) for reporting their financial results, and (iv) for quoting salaries and wages. The survey results reported here extend some earlier results reported in a previous Review article by Murray and Powell. The data indicate that, despite the dominance of the U.S. dollar in world trade and as an international standard of value, use of the U.S. dollar in Canada is very limited. The vast majority of Canadian firms price their products and keep their financial statements in Canadian dollars, and very few workers in Canada have their salaries paid in a foreign currency. The Canadian dollar is still strongly preferred for most pricing and financial-reporting activities in Canada, and there is very little evidence of "dollarization."

  Content Type(s): Publications, Bank of Canada Review articles Topic(s): Exchange rate regimes
• December 21, 2002

  Exchange Rate Regimes in Emerging Markets

  Bank of Canada Review - Winter 2002-2003 Jeannine Bailliu, John Murray

  A series of major international financial crises in the 1990s, and the recent introduction of the euro, have renewed interest in alternative exchange rate systems. The choice of exchange rate regime is particularly relevant for emerging-market countries because other countries are perceived either as having no alternative to their current exchange rate arrangement or as highly unlikely to change. This article examines the evolution of exchange rate regimes in emerging markets over the past decade and compares the strengths and weaknesses of the various available systems. These include intermediate regimes, such as the adjustable pegged exchange rate popular throughout much of the post—war period, and the two extreme exchange rate regimes: permanently fixed or freely floating exchange rate regimes. Two recently proposed alternatives are also evaluated: the Managed Floating Plus and Baskets, Bands, and Crawling Pegs. Both try to combine the best elements of the flexible and fixed exchange rate systems, but the Managed Floating Plus is deemed to be the more promising alternative.

  Content Type(s): Publications, Bank of Canada Review articles Topic(s): Development economics, Exchange rate regimes
• November 21, 2002

  Is Canada Dollarized?

  Bank of Canada Review - Autumn 2002 John Murray, James Powell

  The sharp depreciation of the Canadian dollar and the successful launch of the euro have sparked a lively debate in Canada about the possible benefits of formally adopting the U.S. dollar as our national currency. Some observers have suggested that this debate is largely irrelevant, since Canada is already highly "dollarized." Canadian businesses and households, they assert, often use the U.S. dollar to perform standard money functions in preference to their own currency. Very little evidence has been provided, however, to support these claims. The authors review the available data with a view to drawing some tentative conclusions about the extent to which Canada has already been informally dollarized. The evidence suggests that many of the concerns that have been expressed about the imminent demise of the Canadian dollar have been misplaced. The Canadian dollar continues to be used as the principal unit of account, medium of exchange, and store of value within our borders. Moreover, there is no indication that dollarization is likely to take hold in the foreseeable future. Indeed, in many respects, the Canadian economy is less dollarized now than it was 20 years ago.

  Content Type(s): Publications, Bank of Canada Review articles Topic(s): Exchange rate regimes

• The Impact of Common Currencies on Financial Markets: A Literature Review and Evidence from the Euro Area

  Staff Working Paper 2002-35 Liliane Karlinger

  This paper reviews both the theoretical and empirical literature on the impact of common currencies on financial markets and evaluates the first three years of experience with Economic and Monetary Union (EMU).

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Exchange rate regimes, Financial markets JEL Code(s): E, E4, E44, F, F2, F21, F3, F36, G, G1, G15

• Dollarization in Canada: The Buck Stops There

  Technical Report No. 90 John Murray, James Powell

  The sharp depreciation of the Canadian dollar and the successful launch of the euro have spawned an animated debate in Canada concerning the potential benefits of formally adopting the U.S. dollar as our national currency.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Technical reports Topic(s): Exchange rate regimes JEL Code(s): E, E3, E32, F, F3, F33, F36

• Does Exchange Rate Policy Matter for Growth?

  Staff Working Paper 2002-17 Jeannine Bailliu, Robert Lafrance, Jean-François Perrault

  Previous studies on whether the nature of the exchange rate regime influences a country's medium-term growth performance have been based on a tripartite classification scheme that distinguishes between pegged, intermediate, and flexible exchange rate regimes.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Exchange rate regimes, Exchange rates, Monetary policy framework JEL Code(s): F, F3, F31, F33, F4, F43, O, O4, O40

• Currency Fluctuations, Liability Dollarization, and the Choice of Exchange Rate Regimes in Emerging Markets

  Staff Working Paper 2002-6 Patrick Osakwe

  Traditional models of exchange rate regimes ignore the destabilizing effects of sharp and unanticipated exchange rate movements.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Exchange rate regimes JEL Code(s): E, E5, E52, F, F3, F31, F4, F41
• November 15, 2001

  Conference Summary: Revisiting the Case for Flexible Exchange Rates

  Bank of Canada Review - Autumn 2001 Lawrence L. Schembri

  This article summarizes the proceedings of an international research conference hosted by the Bank of Canada in November 2000. The conference marked the fiftieth anniversary of Canada's adoption of a flexible exchange rate, and its title recognizes the seminal contribution of Professor Milton Friedman's article "The Case for Flexible Exchange Rates." His keynote address to the conference is also summarized in the article. The conference papers re-examine many of the arguments raised by Friedman using recent developments in economic theory and econometric techniques. They investigate the experience of a wide range of industrialized and emerging-market economies. The main findings are that a strong case can be made for flexible exchange rates in economies that are large commodity exporters and that have credible low-inflation monetary policies and relatively well-developed financial systems.

  Content Type(s): Publications, Bank of Canada Review articles Topic(s): Exchange rate regimes, Exchange rates