Deposit dollarization in emerging markets: modelling the hysteresis effect

Abstract

We estimate a nonlinear relationship that determines two equilibrium levels of deposit dollarization depending on the current value of dollarization and previous episodes of sharp depreciation of the national currency over the past five years. If exchange rate is stable, convergence to a higher equilibrium level of dollarization begins when the 45–50 % threshold of deposit dollarization is exceeded. We estimate the model for short-run dynamics of dollarization and find that the speed of convergence to the higher equilibrium implies quarterly increases of 1.2 to 3 percentage points in the ratio of foreign currency deposits to total deposits.