پویایی قیمت در بازار سیاه ارز خارجی بلاروس

We empirically investigate the interplay between black market and official exchange rates in Belarus. We use information from Prokopovi.ch, an internet platform that was launched in April 2011. Prokopovi.ch allows Belarusian citizens to trade in a functioning two-way market which, as we show, incorporated publicly available information in an efficient manner. We were able to create a daily-level data set spanning a period of time which coincided with a currency crisis. An ongoing deterioration of the current account and diminishing official reserve assets in early 2011 led to increased dysfunction in the official foreign exchange market within Belarus, as banks increasingly refused to sell foreign currency at the official rates. Starting in May 2011, the Lukashenko regime repeatedly devalued the Belarusian ruble, and, in October 2011 finally abandoned fixed exchange rates that had significantly overvalued it. We use several statistical techniques to investigate how the official and black market exchange rates interacted during this period. Our data suggest that the devaluations and the transition towards a free floating regime were anticipated by the black market.

We empirically investigate the interplay between black market and official exchange rates in Belarus. We use information from Prokopovi.ch, an internet platform that was launched in April 2011. Prokopovi.ch allows Belarusian citizens to trade in a functioning two-way market which, as we show, incorporated publicly available information in an efficient manner. We were able to create a daily-level data set spanning a period of time which coincided with a currency crisis. An ongoing deterioration of the current account and diminishing official reserve assets in early 2011 led to increased dysfunction in the official foreign exchange market within Belarus, as banks increasingly refused to sell foreign currency at the official rates. Starting in May 2011, the Lukashenko regime repeatedly devalued the Belarusian ruble, and, in October 2011 finally abandoned fixed exchange rates that had significantly overvalued it. We use several statistical techniques to investigate how the official and black market exchange rates interacted during this period. Our data suggest that the devaluations and the transition towards a free floating regime were anticipated by the black market.

Using data from the website Prokopovi.ch, we investigate the relation between black market and official exchange rates during the Belarusian currency crisis of 2011. Prokopovi.ch, which was set up in April 2011, allowed Belarusian citizens to find potential trading partners in the black market for foreign exchange. Technological progress has, thus, helped Belarusians get around government restrictions more easily: the creation of a website like Prokopovi.ch, which reduced transaction costs in the black market, would not have been possible a few years earlier.