IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ecb/ecbwps/2008916.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Optimal reserve composition in the presence of sudden stops: the euro and the dollar as safe haven currencies

Author

Listed:
  • Beck, Roland
  • Rahbari, Ebrahim

Abstract

We analytically derive optimal central bank portfolios in a minimum variance framework with two assets and "transaction demands" caused by sudden stops in capital inflows. In this model, the transaction demands become less important relative to traditional portfolio objectives as debt to reserve ratios decrease. We empirically estimate optimal dollar and euro shares for 24 emerging market countries and find that optimal reserve portfolios are dominated by anchor currencies and, at current debt to reserve ratios, introducing transactions demand has a relatively modest effect. We also find that euro and dollar bonds act as "safe haven currencies" during sudden stops. Dollars are better hedges for global sudden stops and for regional sudden stops in Asia and Latin America, while the euro is a better hedge for sudden stops in Emerging Europe. We reproduce qualitatively the recent decline in the share of the dollar in emerging market reserves and find that the denomination of foreign currency debt has very little importance for optimal reserve portfolios. JEL Classification: F31, F32, F33, G11

Suggested Citation

  • Beck, Roland & Rahbari, Ebrahim, 2008. "Optimal reserve composition in the presence of sudden stops: the euro and the dollar as safe haven currencies," Working Paper Series 916, European Central Bank.
    • Handle: RePEc:ecb:ecbwps:2008916
    Note: 597822
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.ecb.europa.eu//pub/pdf/scpwps/ecbwp916.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Papaioannou, Elias & Portes, Richard & Siourounis, Gregorios, 2006. "Optimal currency shares in international reserves: The impact of the euro and the prospects for the dollar," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 20(4), pages 508-547, December.
    2. Michael P. Dooley, 1987. "An Analysis of the Management of the Currency Composition of Reserve Assets and External Liabilities of Developing Countries," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Robert Z. Aliber (ed.), The Reconstruction of International Monetary Arrangements, chapter 12, pages 262-280, Palgrave Macmillan.
    3. Dani Rodrik, 2006. "The social cost of foreign exchange reserves," International Economic Journal, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 20(3), pages 253-266.
    4. Richard H. Clarida, 2007. "G7 Current Account Imbalances: Sustainability and Adjustment," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number clar06-2.
    5. Chinn, Menzie David & Frankel, Jeffrey A., 2006. "Will the Euro Eventually Surpass the Dollar As Leading International Reserve Currency?," Santa Cruz Department of Economics, Working Paper Series qt4hz4n9pb, Department of Economics, UC Santa Cruz.
    6. Philip R. Lane & Jay C. Shambaugh, 2010. "Financial Exchange Rates and International Currency Exposures," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(1), pages 518-540, March.
    7. Dellas, Harris & Bang Yoo, Chin, 1991. "Reserve currency preferences of central banks: the case of Korea," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 10(3), pages 406-419, September.
    8. Mr. Ewe-Ghee Lim, 2006. "The Euro’s Challenge to the Dollar: Different Views from Economists and Evidence from COFER (Currency Composition of Foreign Exchange Reserves) and Other Data," IMF Working Papers 2006/153, International Monetary Fund.
    9. Michael P. Dooley & J. Saul Lizondo & Donald J. Mathieson, 1989. "The Currency Composition of Foreign Exchange Reserves," IMF Staff Papers, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 36(2), pages 385-434, June.
    10. Alexander D. Rothenberg & Francis E. Warnock, 2011. "Sudden Flight and True Sudden Stops," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 19(3), pages 509-524, August.
    11. Francis E. Warnock & Veronica C. Warnock, 2005. "International Capital Flows and U.S. Interest Rates," The Institute for International Integration Studies Discussion Paper Series iiisdp103, IIIS.
    12. Mr. Romain Ranciere & Mr. Olivier D Jeanne, 2006. "The Optimal Level of International Reserves for Emerging Market Countries: Formulas and Applications," IMF Working Papers 2006/229, International Monetary Fund.
    13. Eichengreen, Barry & Mathieson, Donald J., "undated". "The Currency Composition of Foreign Exchange Reserves Retrospect and Prospect," WIDER Working Papers 295509, United Nations University, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    14. Guillermo A. Calvo & Alejandro Izquierdo, 2004. "On the empirics of Sudden Stops: the relevance of balance-sheet effects," Proceedings, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, issue Jun.
    15. Menzie Chinn & Jeffrey A. Frankel, 2007. "Will the Euro Eventually Surpass the Dollar as Leading International Reserve Currency?," NBER Chapters, in: G7 Current Account Imbalances: Sustainability and Adjustment, pages 283-338, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    16. Guillermo A. Calvo, 1998. "Capital Flows and Capital-Market Crises: The Simple Economics of Sudden Stops," Journal of Applied Economics, Universidad del CEMA, vol. 1, pages 35-54, November.
    17. Molina, Danielken & Roa, Monica, 2014. "The Effect of Credit on the Export Performance of Colombian Exporters," MPRA Paper 56137, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    18. Mr. Ewe-Ghee Lim, 2007. "Do Reserve Portfolios Respond to Exchange Rate Changes Using a Portfolio Rebalancing Strategy? An Econometric Study Using COFER Data," IMF Working Papers 2007/293, International Monetary Fund.
    19. Fidora, Michael & Fratzscher, Marcel & Thimann, Christian, 2007. "Home bias in global bond and equity markets: The role of real exchange rate volatility," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 26(4), pages 631-655, June.
    20. Anna Wong, 2007. "Measurement and Inference in International Reserve Diversification," Working Paper Series WP07-6, Peterson Institute for International Economics.
    21. Ben-Bassat, Avraham, 1980. "The optimal composition of foreign exchange reserves," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 10(2), pages 285-295, May.
    22. Olivier Jeanne, 2007. "International Reserves in Emerging Market Countries: Too Much of a Good Thing?," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 38(1), pages 1-80.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Habib, Maurizio Michael & Stráský, Jan, 2008. "Oil exporters: in search of an external anchor," Working Paper Series 958, European Central Bank.
    2. Laser, Falk Hendrik & Weidner, Jan, 2020. "Currency compositions of international reserves and the euro crisis," Darmstadt Discussion Papers in Economics 238, Darmstadt University of Technology, Department of Law and Economics.
    3. Roland Beck & Sebastian Weber, 2011. "Should Larger Reserve Holdings Be More Diversified?," International Finance, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 14(3), pages 415-444, December.
    4. Karel Brůna, 2010. "Akumulace devizových rezerv centrálních bank a dynamika absorpce likvidity bankovních systémů České republiky, Polska a Maďarska [Central Bank´s Foreign Exchange Reserves Accumulation and Dynamics ," Politická ekonomie, Prague University of Economics and Business, vol. 2010(6), pages 723-746.
    5. Narkevich, Siarhei & Trunin, Pavel, 2013. "Prospects for the Russian Ruble as a Regional Reserve Currency," Published Papers dok2, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration.
    6. Sergey Narkevich & Pavel Trunin, 2012. "Reserve Currencies: Factors of Evolution and their Role in the World Economy," Research Paper Series, Gaidar Institute for Economic Policy, issue 162P.
    7. Marie Brière & Zvi Bodie, 2014. "Sovereign Wealth and Risk Management: A Framework for Optimal Asset Allocation of Sovereign Wealth," Post-Print hal-01492603, HAL.
    8. Frank Moss, 2011. "The euro: internationalised at birth," BIS Papers chapters, in: Bank for International Settlements (ed.), Currency internationalisation: lessons from the global financial crisis and prospects for the future in Asia and the Pacific, volume 61, pages 57-74, Bank for International Settlements.
    9. Édouard Vidon, 2009. "Monnaies de réserve et stabilité financière internationale," Revue d'Économie Financière, Programme National Persée, vol. 94(1), pages 219-232.
    10. Ms. Franziska L Ohnsorge & Marcin Wolski & Ms. Yuanyan S Zhang, 2014. "Safe Havens, Feedback Loops, and Shock Propagation in Global Asset Prices," IMF Working Papers 2014/081, International Monetary Fund.
    11. Hermann Remsperger & Adalbert Winkler, 2009. "Welchen Einfluss hat der Wechselkurs auf die internationale Rolle von US‐Dollar und Euro?," Perspektiven der Wirtschaftspolitik, Verein für Socialpolitik, vol. 10(1), pages 21-38, February.
    12. Andrew Sheng, 2012. "Opening remarks," BIS Papers chapters, in: Bank for International Settlements (ed.), Financial sector regulation for growth, equity and stability, volume 62, pages 41-44, Bank for International Settlements.
    13. repec:dau:papers:123456789/7874 is not listed on IDEAS
    14. Hasan Comert & Mehmet Selman Colak, 2014. "Can Financial Stability be Maintained in Developing Countries after the Global Crisis: The Role of External Financial Shocks?," ERC Working Papers 1411, ERC - Economic Research Center, Middle East Technical University, revised Jan 2015.
    15. Karel Bruna & Jaroslava Durc�kov�, 2012. "Banking system liquidity absorption and monetary base backing in the context of exchange rate policy in the Czech Republic, Poland and Hungary," Post-Communist Economies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 24(2), pages 257-275, October.
    16. Pavel Trunin & Sergey Narkevich, 2013. "Prospects for the Russian Ruble to Become Regional Reserve Currency," Working Papers 118, Gaidar Institute for Economic Policy, revised 2015.
    17. Ben Hassine Khalladi, hela, 2015. "Financial Crisis Management in Emerging Countries: Optimal Level of International Reserves and Ex Ante Conditions for an International Lender of Last Resort Intervention," MPRA Paper 96151, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    18. Zhang, Bin, 2011. "Is It Desirable for Asian Economies to Hold More Asian Assets in Their Foreign Exchange Reserves?—The People’s Republic of China’s Answer," ADBI Working Papers 306, Asian Development Bank Institute.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Beck, Roland & Rahbari, Ebrahim, 2011. "Optimal reserve composition in the presence of sudden stops," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 30(6), pages 1107-1127, October.
    2. Hermann Remsperger & Adalbert Winkler, 2009. "Welchen Einfluss hat der Wechselkurs auf die internationale Rolle von US‐Dollar und Euro?," Perspektiven der Wirtschaftspolitik, Verein für Socialpolitik, vol. 10(1), pages 21-38, February.
    3. Zhichao Zhang & Li Ding & Fan Zhang & Zhuang Zhang, 2015. "Optimal Currency Composition for China's Foreign Reserves: A Copula Approach," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 38(12), pages 1947-1965, December.
    4. Elias Papaioannou & Richard Portes, 2008. "The international role of the euro: a status report," European Economy - Economic Papers 2008 - 2015 317, Directorate General Economic and Financial Affairs (DG ECFIN), European Commission.
    5. Claudio Borio & Gabriele Galati & Alexandra Heath, 2008. "FX reserve management: trends and challenges," BIS Papers, Bank for International Settlements, number 40.
    6. Edwin M. Truman & Anna Wong, 2006. "The Case for an International Reserve Diversification Standard," Working Paper Series WP06-2, Peterson Institute for International Economics.
    7. Gabriele Galati & Philip Wooldridge, 2009. "The euro as a reserve currency: a challenge to the pre-eminence of the US dollar?," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 14(1), pages 1-23.
    8. Aizenman, Joshua & Cheung, Yin-Wong & Qian, XingWang, 2020. "The currency composition of international reserves, demand for international reserves, and global safe assets," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 102(C).
    9. Ito, Hiro & McCauley, Robert N., 2020. "Currency composition of foreign exchange reserves," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 102(C).
    10. Soesmanto, Tommy & Selvanathan, Eliyathamby A. & Selvanathan, Saroja, 2015. "Analysis of the management of currency composition of foreign exchange reserves in Australia," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 82-89.
    11. Roland Beck & Sebastian Weber, 2011. "Should Larger Reserve Holdings Be More Diversified?," International Finance, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 14(3), pages 415-444, December.
    12. Papaioannou, Elias & Portes, Richard & Siourounis, Gregorios, 2006. "Optimal currency shares in international reserves: The impact of the euro and the prospects for the dollar," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 20(4), pages 508-547, December.
    13. Alfaro, Laura & Kanczuk, Fabio, 2009. "Optimal reserve management and sovereign debt," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 77(1), pages 23-36, February.
    14. Joshua Aizenman & Brian Pinto, 2013. "Managing Financial Integration and Capital Mobility—Policy Lessons from the Past Two Decades," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 21(4), pages 636-653, September.
    15. Sergey Narkevich & Pavel Trunin, 2012. "Reserve Currencies: Factors of Evolution and their Role in the World Economy," Research Paper Series, Gaidar Institute for Economic Policy, issue 162P.
    16. Durdu, Ceyhun Bora & Mendoza, Enrique G. & Terrones, Marco E., 2009. "Precautionary demand for foreign assets in Sudden Stop economies: An assessment of the New Mercantilism," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 89(2), pages 194-209, July.
    17. De Bromhead, Alan & Jordan, David & Kennedy, Francis & Seddon, Jack, 2021. "How does international monetary leadership end? The Sterling Area revisited," QUCEH Working Paper Series 21-02, Queen's University Belfast, Queen's University Centre for Economic History.
    18. Timothy J. Kehoe & Kim J. Ruhl & Joseph B. Steinberg, 2018. "Global Imbalances and Structural Change in the United States," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 126(2), pages 761-796.
    19. Cowan, Kevin & Raddatz, Claudio, 2013. "Sudden stops and financial frictions: Evidence from industry-level data," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 32(C), pages 99-128.
    20. Arslanalp, Serkan & Eichengreen, Barry & Simpson-Bell, Chima, 2022. "The stealth erosion of dollar dominance and the rise of nontraditional reserve currencies," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 138(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    currency composition; foreign exchange reserves; sudden stops;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F31 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - Foreign Exchange
    • F32 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - Current Account Adjustment; Short-term Capital Movements
    • F33 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - International Monetary Arrangements and Institutions
    • G11 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Portfolio Choice; Investment Decisions

    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:ecb:ecbwps:2008916. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: Official Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/emieude.html .

    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.