Не конспирологический анализ роли доллара.
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The dollar’s international status helps insulate the U.S. economy from foreign shocks, reduces transaction costs in trade and finance, and contributes to the international transmission of U.S. shocks and monetary policy effects. For foreign economies, broad use of the dollar in reserves and in international transactions typically results in greater sensitivity of trade, inflation, and asset values to exchange rate movements between their currencies and the dollar.
The dollar is a major form of cash currency around the world. The share of U.S. dollar banknotes estimated to be held outside the United States is substantial. Roughly 75 percent of hundred-dollar notes, 55 percent of fifty-dollar notes, and 60 percent of twenty-dollar notes are held abroad, while about 65 percent of all U.S. banknotes are in circulation outside the country. Approximately $580 billion in physical U.S. currency outstanding was circulating overseas at the end of March 2009. In recent years, euros have also played a greater role as international cash, circulating more extensively outside the euro-area borders. Nevertheless, this physical currency is held mainly in countries in proximity to the euro area.
Foreign holdings of U.S. banknotes offer some limited advantages to the United States. For example, the holdings create a larger base over which the country collects seigniorage. One way to estimate the seigniorage, or savings, that the United States derives from its currency held abroad is to compute a rate of return based on the interest earned on the Treasury portfolio held by the Federal Reserve; this calculation suggests annual savings of more than $30 billion. However, these savings are offset somewhat by the costs to the United States of maintaining a currency outside national boundaries — for example, the expenses associated with controlling counterfeiting and providing depository vaults for new currency available to be exchanged for old dollars.
The benefits derived by the foreign holders of U.S. banknotes are potentially more substantial. Many of these holders enjoy a better store of value and an improved medium of exchange relative to their home currencies, especially when local macroeconomic and political conditions are risky. Still, foreign nations lose the seigniorage they otherwise might have collected if their own currency were fully in use locally.
The dollar serves as a central currency in the exchange rate arrangements of many countries. When a country to some degree fixes its exchange rate in relation to the dollar, it is making a commitment to monetary and sometimes fiscal policies aimed at maintaining a stable value of its currency relative to the dollar. While monetary policy tools in the foreign economy generally could be used to achieve other goals, such as influencing inflation or output directly, when the currency value is kept within rigid bounds relative to the dollar, monetary policy instead tends to be directed at maintaining the bilateral currency value.
According to the Reinhart and Rogoff categorisations, seven countries currently are dollarised or have currency boards using the dollar and eighty-nine have a pegged exchange rate against the dollar. The share of countries linking their currency to the dollar in some manner has been stable since 1995, and this group represents more than a third of world GDP (excluding the United States).
Another indicator of the dollar’s status is its prominence in the portfolios of foreign governments’ foreign exchange reserve accounts. These reserve balances, which are essentially the governments’ foreign currency savings, can be quite large. Foreign exchange reserve holdings grew sharply over the past decade and exceeded $7 trillion in 2008. Developing countries accounted for most of the increase, with China taking the lead. Indeed, as of first-quarter 2009, China held 46 percent of the reserves of developing countries.
In 2009, dollar assets accounted for about two-thirds of the reserve assets of industrialised and developing countries. Among industrialised countries, a sharp jump in the dollar share occurred between 1995 and 2000. The rise can be explained primarily by changes in the reserve holdings of euro-area countries. With the introduction of the euro, the legacy currency reserves of euro-area countries — the deutsche marks, francs, lira, and other currencies replaced by the euro — were reclassified as local currencies and therefore were no longer considered foreign currency reserves; this shift in the composition of the countries’ reserve portfolios meant that the dollar assumed a much larger share of the remaining reserves. Subsequently, the dollar share declined only modestly in the portfolios of industrialised countries.
There is a long history of debate on the prospect of a change in the dollar’s role in international reserve portfolios. Over the past decade, many commentators have discussed whether the advent of the euro in 1999 would reduce that role. The theme recurred in the context of the sustainability of the U.S. current account deficit.
The dollar’s prominence as a reserve currency was also discussed at the April 2009 meeting of the Group of Twenty finance ministers. Needless to say, the composition of reserve holdings is not mandated by the central bodies of the international monetary system, but instead is decided by individual countries. Among the reasons cited for a possible change in the dollar’s role are the relatively high growth rates of other parts of the world, the large size of the euro area, and potential changes in patterns of economic and military strength.
A shift away from dollar assets, including Treasury securities, could be a concern for the United States if divestiture triggers higher funding costs. In the extreme, private investors could spur a run on dollar assets that leads to a destabilising fall in the value of the currency and a sharp rise in U.S. interest rates. However, such a drastic outcome appears unlikely. Overall, despite market turbulence and substantial movements in the value of the dollar over the past decade, the dollar has not declined in prominence either as a central currency for exchange rate arrangements or as an international reserve currency. The future of the dollar in this context continues to be the subject of discussion and policy statements, but the currency’s status has been maintained.
The dollar is a leading transaction currency in the foreign exchange markets and a key invoicing currency in international trade. With an 86 percent share of FX transaction volume (currency shares total 200 percent because each transaction involves two currencies), — more than twice the share of the euro — the dollar continues to dominate these markets. Turnover volumes in the foreign exchange markets have more than doubled in the past decade, implying large numbers of transactions measured in reference to, or involving, the dollar. In the FX markets, higher transaction volumes contribute to lower bid-ask spreads and reduced implicit transaction costs for using dollars — advantages that in turn reinforce the use of the dollar in these transactions. This self-reinforcing pattern exemplifies the inertia phenomenon described earlier: once a currency has an established and deep role in international markets, it is not easily displaced from this role.
Another likely contributor to the dollar’s leading role in foreign exchange transactions is the currency’s widespread use in the invoicing of international trade. Use of the dollar in export invoicing is substantial and far exceeds what could be explained by country exports to the United States. This reliance on the dollar for invoicing exports to nations other than the United States may reflect inertia in currency use, the large size and relatively stability of the U.S. economy, or exchange rate arrangements that link the currency of the destination country or the exporting country to the dollar. In addition, it may reflect the incentive for exporters to limit the movements of their prices relative to those of competitors by choosing the invoicing currency used by the majority of producers in the industry. A final factor is the incentive to invoice in a currency that offers the best hedge against cost fluctuations stemming from relevant movements in aggregate demand and wages in the source and destination countries (Goldberg and Tille 2008).
It is reasonable to consider whether the advent of the euro has changed dollar use as a currency for invoicing international trade. Research on the evolution of invoicing patterns over time finds that the euro has not substantially eroded the use of dollars for this purpose. The euro is used extensively for invoicing trade of the sixteen countries that have adopted the currency — both in transactions among themselves and with other markets — but not broadly in other regions. This activity is well documented by the European Central Bank (2009) in a series of reports on the international role of the euro and in related research by Kamps (2006) and Goldberg (2007). Other research shows that dollar use in the invoicing of international trade is associated with relatively low transmission of exchange rate movements to U.S. import prices and thus a reduced impact of exchange rate movements on U.S. consumers (Goldberg and Tille 2006; Goldberg and Dillon 2007).
The international debt markets are another area in which the dollar serves as a prominent currency. The currency’s status is exemplified by the share of all outstanding debt securities, issued anywhere in the world, denominated in dollars. According to this measure, the dollar’s share stands at approximately 39 percent, down only slightly from a high of 42 percent in 1999. Another key gauge is the dollar-denominated share of all securities sold outside the issuing country and in a currency different from that of the issuer’s country. This narrower measure — termed “international debt securities” — suggests that the dollar also continues to be a significant currency for debt when borrowers turn to external markets and foreign currency financing. In 2009, the dollar accounted for almost half of these debt securities.
An analysis of currency use by region suggests that in debt issuance by individuals and governments, as in other areas of international trade and finance, the euro has not had a sizeable impact on the dollar. The dollar remains the primary financing currency for issuers in the Middle East, Latin America, Asia, and the Pacific area. The euro dominates issuances in Scandinavia, the United Kingdom, and the new member states of the European Union. Issuers in Africa rely on dollars and euros about equally.
The dollar also plays an important role in the cross-border foreign currency liabilities of banks in countries that report data to the Bank for International Settlements. These outstanding liabilities are to creditors outside the reporting country and in a currency other than that of the reporting country. Over the past decade, such liabilities have grown substantially with respect to bank and non-bank counter-parties, with liabilities to non-banks (including money market mutual funds) expanding slightly faster than liabilities to banks. The dollar continues to claim a dominant share of these cross-border liabilities to both nonbank and bank counter-parties. The slight decline in the dollar share in recent years is likely attributable to measures that use current, rather than constant, exchange rates.
Further evidence of the dollar’s continued prominence is provided by the strong dollar funding needs of non-U.S. banks during the recent financial market turbulence. Data on cross-border liability denominations show that by June 2008, non-U.S. banks had accumulated approximately $27 trillion in cross-border liabilities denominated in currencies other than that of their home country. More than $18 trillion of this amount was denominated in dollars.
Accordingly, when the credit markets tightened, these banks had substantial dollar funding needs. The disruption of dollar availability abroad was partially addressed by the foreign exchange swap lines established between the Federal Reserve and other central banks. During the early stages of the recent crisis, prior to the expansion of the swap lines, the volumes of dollars available and drawn upon totalled less than $70 billion. By the end of 2008, expansion of dollar availability through the central bank dollar swap lines, combined with the growing financing needs outside the United States, brought amounts drawn by central banks to more than $560 billion. The trade activity and range of financial transactions associated with these figures suggest that the dollar remains a leading transaction currency.
As the size and structure of the global economy change, international currency use may change as well. Despite evidence of the dollar’s vitality, the currency’s preeminence could diminish in the future. Indeed, historical precedent exists for the rise and fall of the international status of currencies. In the first half of the twentieth century, for example, the dollar overtook the pound sterling as the dominant reserve currency. The timing of this shift is debated. Eichengreen and Flandreau (2008) argue that the dollar first overtook sterling in the mid-1920s. Chinn and Frankel (2008) suggest that the change occurred after World War II.
Changes to the global economy could have major implications for the international transmission of shocks, the value of the dollar, and welfare across economies. Accordingly, it seems important for policymakers to monitor use of the dollar in international economic activity and to understand the potential causes and consequences of the dollar’s changing international role.