Do Monetary Handcuffs Restrain Leviathan?
This paper studies fiscal policy in countries that have chosen an extreme monetary stance. We think of a country as having an extreme monetary policy if it is in either a currency board or a common currency area. In much of our analysis, we distinguish between multilateral currency unions (such as the East Caribbean Currency Area, or ECCA) and countries that have unilaterally adopted the currency of an anchor country (such as Panama). It is possible to motivate our analysis in several ways. A number of countries are considering whether to abandon national monetary sovereignty and unilaterally adopt the money of another country, including Mexico and Argentina; Ecuador, Guatemala, and El Salvador are already proceeding with dollarization. In Europe, 12 countries have already abandoned national monetary discretion within the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU). More generally, there has been much discussion of the “disappearing center” of exchange rate regimes; countries are said to have a
