Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Adopting someone else's currency

El Salvador and Ecuador chose to dollarize their economies about ten years ago (Panama has long used US currency). Going with the dollar gave the two countries a level of currency stability and trust that they did not have previously, but took away monetary policy control from the country and tied them to whatever the US is doing. Essentially, the move got rid of some problems and added some new ones. Debates still continue over whether it was a good move and whether the countries should consider going back to their own currencies.

In the next 10-20 years, could another Latin American or Caribbean country adopt a foreign currency? The Dollar is always possible (in fact, it's used as a de facto alternate currency in several countries), but so would be the Chinese Renminbi, the Brazilian Real, the Mexican Peso or, if they get their act back together, the Euro.

This is a different debate from the question of whether countries should create a unified currency. This is about a country completely surrendering monetary control and giving up managing its own currency supply.

What sort of political leadership would it take? What sort of crisis would drive Guatemala, Peru, Paraguay or Haiti to decide to sack their own currency and jump on with another country? Would the US, Brazil and Europe compete to be the new currency, would they push against it, or would they just ignore it as it happened?

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