The possibility of a single currency for the Mercosur countries was raised by Argentine President Menem in December 1997 and again at the regional summit this past June. This paper argues that whether Mercosur needs a common currency depends on what kind of integrated regional market its...

We study the macroeconomic effects of internal devaluations undertaken by a periphery of countries belonging to a monetary union. We find that internal devaluations have large and positive output effects in the long run. Through an expectations channel, most of these effects carry over to the...

In this paper we analyze whether common currency' countries that is, dollarized and independent currency union countries have outperformed countries that have a currency of their own. The paper is empirical and estimates jointly the probability of being a common currency country and outcome'...

Dollarization has been suggested as a policy that might, among other goals, promote trade between a country adopting the dollar and the United States. Evidence supporting this conjecture could be drawn from a recent series of papers by Rose and co-authors who show that a currency union increases...

What is the optimal number of currencies in the world? Common currencies affect trading costs and, thereby, the amounts of trade, output, and consumption. From the perspective of monetary policy, the adoption of another country's currency trades off the benefits of commitment to price stability...

The cross-country variation in the severity of the crisis was largely determined by three fundamentals: the strength of the banking system, the real appreciation, and the international liquidity of the country. We also find that the rule that links fundamentals to the crisis severity has been...

This paper shows that the risk of devaluation can be an important factor accounting for the stylized facts of exchange-rate-based stabilizations. This conclusion follows from studying the quantitative implications of a two-sector equilibrium business cycle model of a small open economy...

In this paper, I discuss the implications for emerging countries of the adoption of central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) in advanced jurisdictions, such as the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Euro Zone. The analysis identifies benefits as well as costs. Among the former, one of the...

Recently a number of authors have criticized the role of devaluations in traditional stabilization programs. It has been argued that, contrary to the traditional view, devaluations are contractionary, and generate a decline in aggregate output. In spite of the renewed theoretical interest in the...

The central hypothesis of this paper is that both the extent and speed of adjustment of the real exchange rate is affected by the way the central bank manages the nominal exchange rate. Specifically, a large discrete adjustment of the nominal exchange rate is more likely to result in fast...