Dollarization, Bailouts, and the Stability of the Banking System

S-Tier
Journal: Quarterly Journal of Economics
Year: 2002
Volume: 117
Issue: 2
Pages: 467-502

Score contribution per author:

4.022 = (α=2.01 / 2 authors) × 4.0x S-tier

α: calibrated so average coauthorship-adjusted count equals average raw count

Abstract

Central bank policy suffers from time inconsistency when facing a banking crisis: a bailout is optimal ex post, but ex ante it should be limited to control moral hazard. Dollarization provides a credible commitment not to help at the cost of not helping even when it would be ex ante optimal to do so. Dollarization is good when the costs of establishing a reputation for the central bank are high, monitoring effort by the banker is important in improving returns, and when the cost of liquidating projects is moderate. However, a very severe moral hazard problem could make dollarization undesirable. The results obtained are applied to assess the desirability of dollarization in a range of countries and the potential role of the IMF as International LOLR. We would never put ourselves in a position where we envisioned actions that we would take would be of assistance to the rest of the world but to the detriment of the United States. Alan Greenspan to a congressional panel in 1999 [IHT, January 19, 2000].

Technical Details

RePEc Handle
repec:oup:qjecon:v:117:y:2002:i:2:p:467-502.
Journal Field
General
Author Count
2
Added to Database
2026-01-25