Argentina's economy and monetary institutions are, once again, experiencing a serious crisis. In this document, we propose a monetary reform for Argentina that consists of flexible dollarization plus a free banking regime. By flexible dollarization, we mean that the peso should be replaced with...

Spanish Abstract: La economía y las instituciones monetarias de la Argentina están experimentando, una vez más, una profunda crisis. En este documento nos proponemos plantear una reforma monetaria para Argentina que consiste en una dolarización flexible junto a un régimen de banca libre....

This paper uses a Synthetic Control Analysis to examine the economic effectiveness of dollarization in Ecuador. We address common concerns surrounding the adoption of dollarization as a policy and provide several solutions to those concerns. We find that dollarization resulted in significant...

Rafael Correa’s presidency in Ecuador (2007 – 2017) exemplifies left-leaning populist regimes in Latin America. However, there is a key difference: Ecuador is a dollarized economy. This removes the possibility of fiscal dominance over monetary policy as is common in populist regimes. This...

We analyze a recent paper that claims that dollarizing an economy in the presence of a “dollar shortage” will provoke an immediate sharp reduction in real output and welfare. We find many problems with the model that supports this conclusion: confusion about the nature of a dollar shortage...

This paper looks at 21st-century dollarization in Latin America. We emphasize that dollarization is a complex reform that can be implemented in many different ways. We draw three important lessons from these experiences: (1) keeping the central bank after dollarizing is an unnecessary...