Dollarization and Semi-Dollarization in Ecuador
Over the 1980s and 1990s, GDP growth had stagnated because of oil export price volatility and natural disasters, the sacrifice of capital formation to heavy external public debt service, and incomplete and uneven structural reform. The exchange rat...
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Language: | English en_US |
Published: |
World Bank, Washington, DC
2014
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Online Access: | http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2001/07/1552023/dollarization-semi-dollarization-ecuador http://hdl.handle.net/10986/19595 |
Summary: | Over the 1980s and 1990s, GDP growth had
stagnated because of oil export price volatility and natural
disasters, the sacrifice of capital formation to heavy
external public debt service, and incomplete and uneven
structural reform. The exchange rate depreciation that
proved continually necessary to sustain the net-export
surplus and limit external debt accumulation induced
Ecuadorians to dollarize spontaneously. The 1998 shocks
affected real economic activity--hence bank loan portfolios,
and widened the fiscal and current acccount deficits. The
external imbalance led to exchange rate depreciation.
Dollar-denominated bank loans whose borrowers lacked dollar
income increasingly turned non-performing. At the same time,
the depreciation swelled the locla currency value of dollar
deposit liabilities. Many depositors, fearing that banks had
become unsafe, withdrew, and over 1999 the Central Bank had
to provide banks massive liquidity support. By year's
end, the resulting monetary issue led to the exchange rate
collapse and incipient hyperinflation that forced the move
to full dollarization. Ecuador's Central Bank will
continue operating, using its foreign exchange holdings to
carry out limited liquidity management and
lender-of-last-resort activities. Ecuador's public
accounts and banking system remain vulnerable to
commodity-price and natural shocks. Exchange rate adjustment
and monetary expansion are no longer available, however, to
manage the external accounts, accommodate the public
deficit, or assist failing banks. Further structural reform
remains essential to assure fiscal discipline and banking
system safety. |
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