Anali Hrvatskog Politološkog Društva (Jan 2008)
Euroization, monetary union and the credibility of monetary policy
Abstract
Assessment of exchange-rate arrangements has become an integral feature of recent discussions on reform of the international financial architecture. The upshot of this recent interest in exchange-rate regimes is that a large part of the profession appears to have become converted to ‘the hypothesis of the vanishing middle regime’, for countries well-integrated into world capital markets, there is little, if any, middle ground between floating exchange rates and monetary unification. The literature on optimal currency areas emphasizes that policy independence is crucial if countries face recurrent idiosyncratic disturbances. If member-countries of the EMU show sizeable asymmetry in the timing of business cycle phases and their exposure to exogenous shocks, these countries may be better off retaining their ability to conduct monetary and exchange-rate policies. Consequently,the important empirical issue is whether Europe is a region in which country-specific shocks prevail or whether shocks affect most of these countries in a similar way. Euroization is a relatively rare phenomenon. Yet in recent years it has attracted a lot of attention,which can be proved by an increasing number of studies dealing with this problem, as well as an increasing number of countries taking this course of action. This paper deals with the advantages and disadvantages of euroization (dollarization), not only from the theoretical aspect but also on the basis of experience of other dollarized countries. The unequivocal conclusion is that euroization (dollarization) is not a monetary policy instrument that can be recommended to Croatia.
