Word: dollarization
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...make themselves available for this article, told Congress this past summer that they are rapidly staffing up for Afghanistan and Pakistan, where the agency may soon have its biggest footprint since Vietnam. Currently the dependence on highly paid consultants means at least half of every development dollar stays...
...Although the rupiah could suddenly weaken against the dollar and shave off a significant chunk of a trader's profit, "If your carrying spread is wide enough, you'll comfortably take the currency risk," says Johanna Chua, chief economist with Citigroup in Asia. In fact, Chua says, the dollar carry trade has become so widespread among traders in Asia it has even triggered buying of more exotic and illiquid currencies like the Sri Lankan rupee. "That's the ultimate carry trade," Chua says...
...dollar didn't always enjoy the dubious honor of being the global currency a trader could most cheaply borrow. For much of the last decade Japan has been the world's largest moribund economy, with an economy so weak the Bank of Japan never dared to lift interest rates significantly above zero. During this time the Japanese yen was the currency traders loved. No longer, it seems. "The yen has become the least obvious carrying currency," says Credit Suisse's Desbarres, mainly because the near-zero interest rates Japan once exclusively offered are now available from central banks across...
...Until then the dollar carry trade is going to be a decidedly mixed blessing. Because the dollar is so cheaply available today it creates a source of global funding that grew dangerously scarce after the collapse of U.S. investment bank Lehman Brothers in mid-2008. That's the good news...
...More important, the liquidity the dollar carry trade creates, like alcohol, can also be hazardous if taken in immoderate amounts. For instance, Citigroup's Chua says one of the reasons Asia's stock and property markets have been rallying over the last six months is because of the overabundance of short-term liquidity. "A lot of dollars are seeping into Asian economies," she says. "That's pumping up asset bubbles." When those bubbles burst, as they frequently do, there will no doubt be unpleasant messes to clean...