FINANCIAL DOLLARIZATION: Evaluating the consequences

Financial dollarization has been placed at the forefront of the policy debate in many developing economies, for reasons that include its influence on inflation performance and, most prominently, the currency imbalance and associated financial fragility that it introduces for the economy as a whole. This paper contributes to this debate by revisiting the evidence on the impact of FD on inflation, financial fragility and economic performance in light of a new updated database. It finds evidence that financially dollarized economies tend to display higher inflation rates, higher propensity to suffer banking crises and slower and more volatile output growth, without significant gains in terms of domestic financial depthdollarization

Financial Dollarisation: Evaluating The Consequences

Financial dollarisation, defined as the holding by residents of foreign currency assets and liabilities, has been placed at the forefront of the policy debate in developing economies. The reasons include its alleged influence on the conduct of monetary policy and, most prominently, the deleterious impact of exchange rate depreciations on the solvency of dollar debtors (the balance sheet effect). However, the vast analytical literature on these issues contrasts with the scarcity of empirical work to support or refute these implications. This paper contributes to fill this gap. Using a new updated database, the paper revisits the evidence on the determinants of financial dollarisation, and tests whether the impact on monetary and financial stability, and economic performance predicted by the theory is verified in the data. It finds that financially dollarised economies display a more unstable demand for money, a greater propensity to suffer banking crises after a depreciation of the local currency, and slower and more volatile output growth, without significant gains in terms of domestic financial depth. In this light, the case for an active de-dollarisation policy is discussed.

Recurrent Debt Problems and International Safety Nets

In this paper, I revisit the moral hazard arguments in order to discuss alternative approaches to the role of the IFIs. In particular, I distinguish between lender, borrower and government moral hazard, according to how the costs and benefits of IFI intervention are distributed among the relevant players, and argue that it is the latter problem that should be at the center of the debate. In this light, I analyze the consequences of alternative modus operandi of the IFIs. I conclude that both casual evidence and economic analysis suggest that an explicit international safety net, by enhancing the expected returns of good policies as perceived by the government, may create the right incentives outweighing hazard considerations and, as a result, may help reduce the incidence of recurrent debt problems.

Soveregin Debt Management

This paper reviews debt management strategies in Latin America from a positive and a normative perspective. It discusses the definition of the debt perimeter (what items should be considered to optimize the cost-risk balance of a debt strategy), broadening the scope beyond documented general government liabilities to include both contingent and non-financial items, provides an empirical account of the evolution of the composition of sovereign debt in Latin American in the past 20 years, and draws key policy implications

Concentration and foreign penetration in Latin American banking sectors: impact on competition and risk

In recent years, Latin American banking sectors have experienced an accelerated process of concentration and foreign penetration that has prompted diverse views regarding its implications for the competitive behavior of banks and for the financial stability of the system as a whole. Exploiting a rich bank-level balance sheet database for eight Latin American countries, we examine the evolution of concentration and foreign penetration indicators and their impact on competition and risk. We find that, while concentration did not reduce competition in the industry, foreign penetration appears to have led to less competitive banking sectors. Moreover, we find banking sector fragility to be positively related to competition and, through this channel, negatively related to foreign participation, despite the fact that foreign banks in the region are associated with higher insolvency risk due to higher leverage ratios and more volatile returns.Para cualquier uso del contenido del presente documento debe ponerse en contacto con el autor

CATalytic insurance : the case of natural disasters

Why should countries buy expensive catastrophe insurance? Abstracting from risk aversion or hedging motives, this paper shows that catastrophe insurance may have a catalytic role on external finance. Such effect is particularly strong in those middle-income countries that face financial constraints when hit by a shock or in its anticipation. Insurance makes defaults less appealing, relaxes countries'borrowing constraint, increases their creditworthiness, and enhances their access to capital markets. Catastrophe lending facilities providing"cheap"reconstruction funds in the aftermath of a natural disaster weaken but do not eliminate the demand for insurance.Debt Markets,Bankruptcy and Resolution of Financial Distress,Labor Policies,Emerging Markets,Financial Intermediation

Country Insurance

The recent wave of financial crises has fueled the debate on the effect of IFIs intervention on governments' incentives to undertake reforms. In this paper we treat this intervention more generally as a country insurance contract, and examine its implications in a stylized set-up. More precisely, we identify the conditions under which the positive insurance effect dominates moral hazard considerations, and the channels through which this is achieved. In particular, we find that the case for country insurance is stronger for crisis-prone volatile economies, especially so if assistance is made contingent on the occurrence of adverse external macroeconomic shocks. Overall, our findings argue in favor of fairly-priced country insurance or insurance-type standing credit facilities that can be factored in ex ante by the borrowing government, as opposed to the customized discretionary bailoutsFinancial Crises, Bailouts, Moral Hazard, Insurance Effect,

The Elusive Costs of Sovereign Defaults

Few would dispute that sovereign defaults entail significant economic costs, including, most notably, important output losses. However, most of the evidence supporting this conventional wisdom, based on annual observations, suffers from serious measurement and identification problems. To address these drawbacks, we examine the impact of default on growth by looking at quarterly data for emerging economies. We find that, contrary to what is typically assumed, output contractions precede defaults. Moreover, we find that the trough of the contraction coincides with the quarter of default, and that output starts to grow thereafter, indicating that default episode seems to mark the beginning of the economic recovery rather than a further decline. This suggests that, whatever negative effects a default may have on output, those effects result from anticipation of a default rather than the default itself.