Choix de la monnaie de facturation et commerce de la France avec les pays de l'Europe de l'Est

Abstract

Choice of Currency Denomination and France's Trade with the Countries of East Europe. The object of this article is two-fold : to examine theoritically the effect of choice of currency denomination for imports and exports on the balance of payments, and to analyse the statistics having a bearing on France's choice of currency denomination in her external trade, particularly with Eastern Europe. The special feature of the theoretical part of the study is that it adopts the macro-economic approach. It is assumed that the banks and enterprises of each country form a community of interests (COMINT). Losses or expenses incurred by one of the members of the COMINT, but strictly balanced by the gains of another member, are not taken into account. In other words, what is good for the individual bank (or enterprise) is not necessarily so for the country as a whole. The author then devises a model at three different levels of complexity, based on various possible combinations of currency denomination, exchange rates and financial structures in the context of foreign trade. Comparison of the theoretical results in the model with the choice of currency denomination in the East and West shows that the countries of Eastern Europe, by refusing to use their national currency in international trade, avail themselves of the most advantageous monetary policies. In the statistical section, the author demonstrates that, in the case of France, two currencies, vrz French francs and U.S. dollars, account on average for 76 % and 62 % of all currency denominations used in French exports and imports respectively. In trade between France and Eastern Europe (not including the USSR) the choice of currency denomination is even more favourable to France. This is not so in the case of trade between France and the USSR, where France is obliged to pay 92,8 % of her accounts in dollars, almost as much as in her trade with the oil-producers of the Persian Gulf.