Search Results
Journal Article
Alternative small dollar loans: creating sound financial products through innovation and regulation
Low- to moderate-income borrowers need alternatives to payday loans to meet their short-term credit needs. This article provides an overview of consumer demand for smaller loans, and discusses how and why mainstream financial institutions should offer less costly alternatives to traditional payday loans. A two-year FDIC pilot, a smalldollar loan pool in Baltimore, and individual case studies suggest that such lending can be viable and profitable. The article concludes with recommendations for how financial institutions and regulators should support this effort.
Journal Article
Responding to global crises: dollarization in Latin America
Journal Article
Official dollarization and the banking system in Ecuador and El Salvador
In January 2000 Ecuador adopted the U.S. dollar as legal tender, and El Salvador followed suit in 2001. The two countries officially dollarized under quite different circumstances: Ecuador was suffering an economic and banking crisis, while El Salvador enjoyed economic stability and low inflation rates. This article studies the evolution of the banking system in these two countries before and after official, or full, dollarization. ; In Ecuador the reforms that ensued from full dollarization have improved transparency and banking performance and competitiveness, but the implementation and ...
Conference Paper
Dollarization, bailouts, and the stability of the banking system
Working Paper
Banking and the political support for dollarization
In this paper we study dollarization as a commitment device that the Central Bank could use to avoid getting involved in an undesirable banking-sector bailout. We show how a political process could induce an equilibrium outcome that differs from the one that a benevolent Central Bank would want to implement. Dollarization then could be used to restore the economy to the benevolent outcome. In so doing though, political support for dollarization becomes essential. For our benchmark case, dollarization does not have enough support to be actually implemented. But when we study the interaction ...
Journal Article
Foreign gold and dollar holdings in 1949
Journal Article
Revising the Atlanta Fed dollar index
For more than a decade the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta's trade-weighted dollar index has served as a summary statistic for foreign exchange movements of the dollar. Recent revisions acknowledging significant changes in the worldwide economy ensure that the index will continue to contribute valuable information into the future. ; One significant revision to the Atlanta Fed index is to include all eleven countries that adopted the euro on January 4, 1999. Other revisions take into account that the spread of market-based economics, together with deregulation and privatization in many ...
Working Paper
Dollar illiquidity and central bank swap arrangements during the global financial crisis
While the global financial crisis was centered in the United States, it led to a surprising appreciation in the dollar, suggesting global dollar illiquidity. In response, the Federal Reserve partnered with other central banks to inject dollars into the international financial system. Empirical studies of the success of these efforts have yielded mixed results, in part because their timing is likely to be endogenous. In this paper, we examine the cross-sectional impact of these interventions. Theory consistent with dollar appreciation in the crisis suggests that their impact should be greater ...
Journal Article
The cause of the dollar depreciation
An abstract for this article is not available