This work grew out of a series of investigations begun by the authors in 1980 and 1981. Specifically the authors pursued two lines of inquiry. First, to advance the state of the theoretical lit erature to better explain the crises of liberalization which seemed to be afflicting the third world in general and Latin America in particular. To do this, several different kinds of models were in vestigated and adapted. These are presented in Chapters 2, 3 and 5. Secondly an analysis of the empirical evidence was conducted in order to gain insight into the processes that were thought to be occurring and the theoretical models that were being developed. Some of this work appears in Chapters 3, 4, 5 and 6. Other work by the authors on these issues has been published elsewhere and is referenced herein. There are a great many people whose work and whose com ments have influenced this work. We would like to especially thank Guillermo Calvo, Michael Connolly, Sebastian Edwards, Roque Fernandez, Michael Darby, Robert Clower, Neil Wallace, John Kareken, Paul McNelis, Jeffrey Nugent, Jaime Marquez, Lee Ohanian, Leroy Laney, Jorge Braga de Macedo, Dale Henderson, vii Matthew Canzoneiri, Arthur Laffer, Marc Miles, and George Von Furstenberg whose ideas and comments gave rise to much of our work. We would like to thank Suh Lee for his assistance with the computations in Chapter 5.

This paper presents a cash-in-advance framework, with variable income velocity, where the domestic effects, as well as the international transmission, of financial innovation can be analyzed. In particular, the discussion emphasizes the role of currency substitution and of cross-border transfers of seigniorage in determining the general equilibrium effects of financial innovation.

This paper reviews the main policy and analytical issues related to currency substitution in developing countries. The paper discusses, first, whether currency substitution should be encouraged or not; second, how the presence of currency substitution affects the choice of nominal anchors in inflation stabilization programs; third, the effects of changes in the rate of growth of the money supply on the real exchange rate; fourth, the interaction between inflationary finance and currency substitution; and, finally, issues related to the empirical verification of the currency substitution hypothesis.

This paper reviews the extensive theoretical and empirical literature on currency substitution. After discussing the ambiguity surrounding the definition of currency substitution, the paper illustrates the causes of substitutability of different currencies using a cash-in-advance model and a model where money yields liquidity services. The effects of currency substitutability on exchange rates, international adjustment and the inflation tax are discussed. The paper also reviews the empirical facts on the size of currency substitution in developed and developing countries. Whereas currency substitution is found to be sizable in some developing countries and on the rise in the European Community, estimates of the ability to substitute foreign for domestic currency are often found to be unreliable due to data, methodological and conceptual problems. Policy implications of currency substitution for international monetary cooperation and inflationary finance are explored.

Yhteenveto.

What causes currency substitution (foreign money substituting for domestic money)? What significance has it had in recent banking crises? And what is the relationship between currency conversion and macroeconmic volatility in Latin America?