The Costs of Losing Monetary Independence: The Case of Mexico
构建了一个美墨两国货币模型，评估美元化对墨西哥的福利影响，发现美元化并非必然优于货币独立，并探讨了失去货币政策自主权的代价。
This paper develops a two-country monetary model calibrated to data from the United States and Mexico to address the question of whether dollarization is welfare improving for the two countries. Our findings suggest that dollarization is not necessarily Pareto superior to monetary independence for Mexico. THERE ARE TWO PERSUASIVE ARGUMENTS that are often put foleth in support of the idea that many countries would benefit from the adoption of the U.S. dollar as their national cultency. One is the standard argument often made in favor of a common currency, that it promotes economic and financial integration and reduces tleansaction costs. The other argument is that dollarization would solve the credibility and commitment problem and impose monetary discipline. The idea is that many countries, particularly in Latin America, have long histories of high inflation and a record of breaking promises to pursue monetary policies that lead to low inflation. Taking monetary policy out of the hands of domestic central banks is one way to addleess this issue. Thus, one of the conjectured benefits of adopting the U.S. dollar hinges on the prospect that this would eliminate an inflationary bias among the participating countries. These benefits have to be balanced against the costs associated with the loss of monetary independence that eithele dollarization or a cultency area necessarily implies. This loss of monetary independence means that the country can no longer use the instruments of monetary policy to adjust to internal or external shocks. These considerations suggest two main questions that should be addressed in thinking about the proposal to adopt the U.S. dollar in Mexico. First, is the higher inflation rate in Mexico necessarily the result of the lack of monetaley discipline ole it can be justified by some principle of optimality in the conduct of monetary policy? Second, is the welfare loss from not being able to use monetary policy to react optimally to shocks quantitatively important?