Milton Friedman's longstanding advocacy in favor of floating exchange rates has contributed to a mistaken belief that he opposed currency board regimes or outright dollarization. Nothing could be further from the truth. Over a period of almost five decades Friedman consistently made it clear...

One of the main reasons to dollarize an emerging market economy is to eliminate high, persistent, and volatile inflation. To be effective, dollarization must generate sufficient credibility, which in turn depends critically on whether its expected probability of reversal is low. Argentina once...

This chapter considers the law of reflux and its alternative interpretations: (1) as a monetary policy rule for stabilizing the price level and (2) as rule for individual banks to follow to remain liquid. The chapter argues that Adam Smith endorsed only the second interpretation, and that the...