IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eme/repspp/reps-12-2022-0108.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Cost of foreign reserve accumulation in emerging market and developing economies

Author

Listed:
  • Gouda Abdel Khalek
  • Amany Rizk

Abstract

Purpose - This paper aims to obtain a recent estimate of the cost of precautionary foreign reserve accumulation that emerging market and developing economies (EMDEs) had to endure to protect themselves against the risks of financial globalization. In addition, the study estimates the cost of excess reserves in emerging market economies (EMEs) using various reserve adequacy indicators that reflect potential sources of foreign exchange drains and vulnerability in EMEs' balance of payments. Design/methodology/approach - This paper begins by explaining the accumulation of foreign reserves in EMDEs as a self-protection strategy against the risks of financial globalization. Next, it sheds light on the different types of economic costs of foreign reserve accumulation. Finally, it estimates the cost of foreign reserve accumulation in EMEs during the period (1990–2018) and in EMDEs during the period (1990–2015) due to data availability. Findings - Results indicate that the cost of accumulating foreign reserves as a self-protection strategy in EMDEs and EMEs' was huge compared to their development financing needs. Applying various reserve adequacy measures demonstrates that many of the EMEs were holding inadequate precautionary reserves in 2018. Actually, this reflects the significant increase in external short term debt that many of the EMEs have witnessed since the eruption of the global financial crisis (2008). Thus increasing reserves in EMEs with weak reserve buffers and higher external debt is critical as they are more vulnerable to external shocks and capital flow reversals. Also given the estimated huge costs of accumulating foreign reserves, EMDEs should accompany it by other complementary self-protection policies and liquidity management policies to free up resources for productive investment. Originality/value - The study contributes to the literature by estimating the cost of precautionary foreign reserve accumulation imposed on EMDEs during an extended period of time that covers a decade after the onset of the global financial crisis. Also to the authors' knowledge, this is the first study that estimates the cost of excess reserves in EMEs using various reserve adequacy indicators including the International Monetary Fund (IMF) assessing reserve adequacy (ARA) approach.

Suggested Citation

  • Gouda Abdel Khalek & Amany Rizk, 2023. "Cost of foreign reserve accumulation in emerging market and developing economies," Review of Economics and Political Science, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 10(2), pages 112-133, February.
  • Handle: RePEc:eme:repspp:reps-12-2022-0108
    DOI: 10.1108/REPS-12-2022-0108
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/REPS-12-2022-0108/full/html?utm_source=repec&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=repec
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/REPS-12-2022-0108/full/pdf?utm_source=repec&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=repec
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1108/REPS-12-2022-0108?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Foreign reserve accumulation; Risks of financial globalization; Self-protection strategy; Cost of precautionary reserves; Emerging market economies; E58; F31; F32; F36; F41; F65; G01;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E58 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Central Banks and Their Policies
    • F31 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - Foreign Exchange
    • F32 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - Current Account Adjustment; Short-term Capital Movements
    • F36 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - Financial Aspects of Economic Integration
    • F41 - International Economics - - Macroeconomic Aspects of International Trade and Finance - - - Open Economy Macroeconomics
    • F65 - International Economics - - Economic Impacts of Globalization - - - Finance
    • G01 - Financial Economics - - General - - - Financial Crises

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eme:repspp:reps-12-2022-0108. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Emerald Support (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.