Amounts Of International Reserves Research Articles

The New Drivers of Fear of Floating: Evidence from Latin America

Abstract There exists a consensus in the literature that during the 90s the main reason for fear of floating in emerging economies was the excessive liabilities dollarization, both in private and public sectors, which resulted in central banks’ interventions over the exchange rate. The main objective of these interventions was preventing the negative balance sheet effects originated by currency depreciations. Latin America certainly fits in this description, as convincingly documented by Calvo and Reinhart (Calvo, Guillermo A., and Carmen M. Reinhart. 2002. “Fear of Floating.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 117 (2): 379–408.). However, Latin American economies have reduced their debt in foreign currency since the early 2000s. Moreover, these economies extensively increased their amount of international reserves in the last decade and some of them – like Colombia and Mexico – have even reached the IMF’s flexible credit line, which operates as an international lender of last resort. All these changes – lower liability dollarization, higher international reserves, and new collaterals – suggest that the fear of devaluating in Latin America should be lower. Nevertheless, floating has not been the decision in terms of exchange rate policy. Conversely, most of Latin American countries that announced free floating opted for managed floating regimes and discretional interventions, in what can be considered as a new era of fear of floating. This paper finds empirical evidence that the main motivation for fear of floating has changed during the recent boom in commodity prices, 2005–2013, when foreign exchange interventions under flexible regimes were focused on avoiding excessive currency appreciations and apparently preventing Dutch disease.

International reserves and trilemma policy convergence in Malaysia

ABSTRACTSome observations have suggested that international reserves contribute to trilemma policy convergence in emerging countries. Nonetheless, this hypothesis needs more solid empirical evidence to determine its validity. This article tests this hypothesis by examining the relationships among the index of policy dispersion, international reserves and trade openness in a threshold model in Malaysia. As a small open economy, Malaysia has accumulated a relatively large amount of international reserves since the mid-1990s. The results indicate that the positive impact of international reserves on reducing policy dispersion or achieving policy convergence is found only if the international reserves are above a threshold. Hence, this conclusion supports the need to hold a relatively high level of international reserves in Malaysia.

International Reserves, Effective Demand and Growth

During the last decade, developing (and some developed) economies have accumulated large amounts of international reserves, mainly for precautionary reasons. This phenomenon has been coupled with insufficient economic growth. The resources being amassed largely overwhelm protective needs, there is an excess of resources that is being wasted, and which could be utilised for alternative productive projects, namely to promote growth. If insufficient aggregate demand can largely explain low growth, it is clear that this excess of international reserves can be used to stimulate aggregate demand. This paper argues that the excess of international reserves represents a potential resource to boost growth.

International Reserves, Growth and Effective Demand

During the last decade, developing (and some developed) economies have accumulated large amounts of international reserves, mainly for precautionary reasons. This phenomenon has been coupled with moderate economic growth. The resources being amassed largely overwhelm protective needs, there is an excess of resources that is being wasted, and which could be utilised for alternative productive projects, namely to promote growth. If insufficient aggregate demand can largely explain low growth, it is clear that this excess of international reserves can be used to stimulate aggregate demand. This paper argues that the excess of international reserves represents a potential source to boost growth.

INTERNATIONAL LIQUIDITY IS ALWAYS INADEQUATE

SUMMARY Much of the recent literature on the adequacy of international reserves states that there should be enough reserves in the world so that countries can avoid undesirable and painful adjustment to balance of payments disequilibrium. But this undesirable adjustment, namely deflation and unemployment, is the only adjustment mechanism that exists under a system of fixed exchange rates. It follows from this that no amount of international reserves, short of infinity, can ever be enough. Furthermore, the existing system is one in which there is a built-in bias toward disequilibrium. If countries differ in their willingness to permit some inflation in exchange for full or nearly full employment, the inflation prone countries will tend to incur deficits. They will avoid adjustment—that is, domestic contraction, as long as they have any reserves above what they consider to be minimally acceptable levels. The inflation-avoiding countries, which will tend to be in surplus, will prefer to accumulate reserves rather than permit inflation. In such a world there is likely always to be a ‘shortage' of reserves, whatever the actual level of reserves may be.