The paper provides an empirical analysis of the determinants of currency substitution in Egypt and the Yemen Arab Republic over the period 1980-86. During this period, residents have exhibited a marked preference to substitute foreign money balances for domestic balances, as indicated by their...

The growing importance of foreign currency deposits (FCDs) in some developing countries has raised numerous issues, particularly regarding the effectiveness of economic policies. This paper discusses factors that influence the emergence of FCDs and their impact on key macroeconomic relations. It...

Growth in sub-Saharan Africa has weakened after more than a decade of solid growth, although this overall outlook masks considerable variation across the region. Some countries have been negatively affected by falling prices of their main commodity exports. Oil-exporting countries, including...

The five Regional Economic Outlooks published biannually by the IMF cover Asia and Pacific, Europe, the Middle East and Central Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa, and the Western Hemisphere. In each volume, recent economic developments and prospects for the region are discussed as a whole, as well as for...

This study examines the challenges and issues facing policymakers in highly dollarized economies. Focusing on Cambodia, which achieved almost complete dollarization during 1991-95, the authors review recent developments in the literature on dollarization and examine the costs and benefits of...

This paper presents the fourth survey of certain changes in international and national monetary law and practice in relation to special drawing rights (SDRs), currencies, and gold. SDRs have characteristics that enable them to function as a supplement to existing reserve assets in the sense that...

The staff report on Belarus’ Third Review under the Stand-By Arrangement is examined. Belarus is beginning to emerge from the crisis. Output loss has been limited relative to neighbors, inflation has fallen, the foreign exchange market has stabilized, and de-dollarization is under way,...

This paper discusses key findings of the First Review under the Stand-By Arrangement for the Republic of Belarus. All end-March 2009 quantitative and continuous performance criteria and structural benchmarks were met, except for the net international reserves target, which was missed by US$221...

This 2009 Article IV Consultation highlights that the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia’s vulnerability at the outset of the global crisis was its large current account deficit in the context of the exchange rate peg to the euro. At the same time, it benefited from a small fiscal...

Cambodia became dollarized suddenly in the early 1990s, as a result of massive dollar inflows stemming from a postconflict situation. Considering that the amount of dollars in circulation is unusually high, we attempt to estimate the true degree of dollarization empirically. Our results show...