Regional Inflation, Banking Integration, and Dollarization*
Review of Finance, 2018, 2073–2108 doi: 10.1093/rof/rfx021 Advance Access Publication Date: 10 May 2017 Regional Inflation, Banking Integration, and Dollarization* Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/rof/article-abstract/22/6/2073/3813131 by guest on 29 October 2018 Martin Brown1, Ralph De Haas2, and Vladimir Sokolov3 1University of St. Gallen, 2European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and Tilburg University, and 3ICEF, National Research University Higher School of Economics Abstract We exploit variation in consumer price inflation across seventy-one Russian regions to examine the relationship between the perceived stability of the domestic currency and financial dollarization. Our results show that regions with higher inflation expe- rience an increase in the dollarization of household deposits and a decrease in the dollarization of loans. The impact of inflation on credit dollarization is weaker in regions with less integrated banking markets. This suggests that the currency- portfolio choices of households and firms are constrained by the asset-liability man- agement of banks. JEL classification: E31, E44, F36, G21, P22, P24 Keywords: Financial dollarization, Banking integration, Regional inflation Received March 10, 2016; accepted March 31, 2017 by Editor Franklin Allen. 1. Introduction Financial dollarization—the widespread holding of assets and liabilities in a foreign cur- rency—is viewed as both a constraint on monetary policy (Ongena, Schindele, and Vonnak, 2015) and a threat to financial stability in many emerging markets.
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