Currency Substitution and the Demand for Money: Some Evidence for Canada

Abstract

RECENTLY, THE POSSIBILITY THAT foreign and domestic currencies are substitutes has received considerable attention (see [1, 2, 3, 10, 19, 21]). Currency substitution has important implications for the working of flexible exchange rates. If the degree of currency substitution is high, small changes in the money supply would induce large changes in the exchange rate. Furthermore, currency substitution would transmit the effect of monetary disturbances from one country to another. Indeed, significant currency substitution would seriously undermine the ability of flexible exchange rates to provide monetary independence. This paper examines the empirical importance of currency substitution in the framework of the demand function for money. If currency substitution is important, the expected change in the exchange rate should be a significant determinant of the demand for home currency. In section 2, we undertake such a test for the Canadian demand for money during the recent flexible exchange rate period. There is considerable evidence that the forward exchange rate is a good measure of the expected exchange rate. Our own tests confirm these results for Canadian data since 1970.