Dollarization: Lessons from Europe for the Americas

The use of the US dollar for domestic monetary transactions outside the USA has gone on for many years now - Panama in 1904 being the earliest example. Since the advent of the Euro, the debate over the benefits of monetary integration has warmed up - particularly for NAFTA countries. This collection, with contributions from experts such as Philip Arestis, Malcolm Sawyer and Stephanie Bell, examines the various problems and benefits involved in monetary integration and covers the causes of Euro instability, monetary policy in non-optimal currency unions, financial openness and dollarization and the question of dollarization in Canada. This book addresses one of the burning policy issues in Europe and America: is monetary union worthwhile? The readable yet comprehensive style of this book will make it of interest not only to academics and students involved in European integration, financial liberalization and dollarization, but will also be an important book for policy-makers at intergovernmental level.