At 07:33 PM 04/16/2000 -0500, you wrote:
>Jim,
>Correct me if I am wrong, but is dollarization any different from in
>the EMU with fixed exchange rates for the small countries?
>Paul
I'm not really the one to ask (not being a international finance expert),
but in the case of the EMU, the decision seemed to have been made by peers
(more or less). But Argentina's decision to dollarize seems more a matter
of a one-sided surrender of national sovereignty. (Ecuador's aborted plan
to abandon their currency altogether in favor of the dollar was even more
extreme.) It's sort of like the Austrians welcoming the German Anscluss,
which made some sense in terms of Austrian national self--interest at the
time. (Sorry about the Nazi analogy, which is quite out of proportion to
the case of dollarization, which by comparison is no big deal. I'm very
tired. Time for bed...)
Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://liberalarts.lmu.edu/~JDevine
