Belarus experienced a sequence of currency crises during 2009-2014. Our empirical results, based on a structural econometric model, suggest that the activist wage policy and extensive state program lending (SPL) conflicted with the tightly managed exchange rate regime and suppressed monetary policy transmission. This created conditions for the unusually frequent crises. At the current juncture, refocusing monetary policy from exchange rate to inflation would help to avoid disorderly external adjustments. The government should abandon wage targets and phase out SPL to remove the underlying source of the imbalances and ensure lasting stabilization.
The rapid advent of digital money (DM) and assets raises questions about its implications for the functioning of the international monetary system (IMS). The low transaction costs of digital technologies, their accessibility and ease of automation, and their integration into existing digital services may bring opportunities in the form of higher financial interconnectedness and inclusion but may also add to risks. This paper explores the possible implications of DM for the IMS from the perspective of cross-border payments, international reserves and the supply of global safe assets, and the global financial safety net. To help inform the discussion, the paper presents empirical analyses of the effect of payment efficiency on international currency adoption for payment/transaction purposes as well as on reserve currency holdings, along with an illustrative modeling scenario of a DM-induced shock for the potential demand for global financial safety net resources.
Belarus experienced a sequence of currency crises during 2009-2014. Our empirical results, based on a structural econometric model, suggest that the activist wage policy and extensive state program lending (SPL) conflicted with the tightly managed exchange rate regime and suppressed monetary policy transmission. This created conditions for the unusually frequent crises. At the current juncture, refocusing monetary policy from exchange rate to inflation would help to avoid disorderly external adjustments. The government should abandon wage targets and phase out SPL to remove the underlying source of the imbalances and ensure lasting stabilization.
The rapid advent of digital money (DM) and assets raises questions about its implications for the functioning of the international monetary system (IMS). The low transaction costs of digital technologies, their accessibility and ease of automation, and their integration into existing digital services may bring opportunities in the form of higher financial interconnectedness and inclusion but may also add to risks. This paper explores the possible implications of DM for the IMS from the perspective of cross-border payments, international reserves and the supply of global safe assets, and the global financial safety net. To help inform the discussion, the paper presents empirical analyses of the effect of payment efficiency on international currency adoption for payment/transaction purposes as well as on reserve currency holdings, along with an illustrative modeling scenario of a DM-induced shock for the potential demand for global financial safety net resources.
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