رژیم های ارز و بحران ارز: در مورد پول کاکائو چطور؟

Since the mid-1990s, there has been a significant shift towards floating exchange rate regimes by developing nations, primarily due to the lack of a viable alternative. Hard-peg systems, which both eliminate independent monetary policy and, if not credible, are subject to speculative attack, are increasingly viewed as a poor choice. This paper explores, theoretically and empirically, the potential benefits and drawbacks of an alternative: commodity-backed money. While proposals for commodity-based money in the industrialized world date back to 1934, with the seminal work by Benjamin Graham, this work analyzes its application to the developing world and its key commodity products.

Recent currency crises have called into question the advisability of utilizing certain currency regimes, at least in developing nations. The most notable, the Asian crisis of 1997–98, demonstrated the problems with pegged, inter-dependent currencies. This was followed by the Ecuadorian Sucre crisis of 2000, which ultimately resulted in the dollarization of that economy. Most recently, the collapse of the dollar-standard in Argentina illustrates the drawbacks of this regime. Since the demise of the fixed exchange rate system in 1973, developing nations have used a variety of means to avoid floating their currencies. Pegged systems have been the most popular, with countries fixing their currencies against the U.S. dollar or an alternative, such as SDRs. In Africa, pegging has taken the form of a currency zone, with contiguous nations pegging against the French Franc (until its replacement with the euro). This search for stability has exposed the inherent problem with most fixed regimes: their susceptibility to speculative attack. The result has been a recent trend towards floating exchange rates—not because of their inherent attractiveness, but simply to avoid the drawbacks of pegged systems. The recent instability in currency markets has led to renewed interest in alternative regimes. One such alternative is the utilization of commodity-backed money, a concept that dates back to 1937, starting with proposals by Benjamin Graham to adopt a currency backed by a basket of commodities (Graham, 1997). As recently as 1999, the issue of securing currencies with some form of tangible asset was raised once again (see Haussmann, 1999). Although Graham originally favored the adoption of a commodity-backed currency in the industrialized world, the developing world's poor experience with existing currency regimes suggests this would be a more fruitful place to examine commodity money. In addition to bringing about currency stability, a commodity-based currency would offer a solution to one of the problems that has plagued developing nations since the 1960s; commodity price instability. This paper will examine, theoretically and empirically, the advantages and disadvantages of adopting a commodity-backed currency within certain nations in the developing world. Although a number of commodities could potentially act as the backing for such a currency, cocoa has been chosen because of the unique characteristics of this particular market (see Section 7). The intent will be to demonstrate the feasibility of such a system, yet expose some of its inherent flaws.

The concept of commodity-backed money is one that will continue to be raised during periods of monetary instability, whether during the high inflationary decade of the 1970s or during the more recent international currency crises in the developing world. As nations in Latin America, Africa, and the Pacific Rim abandon fixed rates in search of a regime that provides stability, commodity-based currency deserves examination. This paper provides an analytical look at one possible form that such a regime could take. While Benjamin Graham's original work foresaw the use of commodity money in the developed world, the attractiveness of flexible exchange rates, particularly the ability to conduct independent monetary policy, suggests that this is unlikely. Yet, for small, commodity-dependent countries, flexible rates are now simply the best of a set of bad choices. The model developed here utilizes the basic framework set up by Graham to describe a currency unit that could be appropriate for these developing nations. It has been demonstrated that a properly designed currency unit, backed by a product like cocoa, could simultaneously provide both currency and commodity price stability. The resources required to adopt and manage such a system are within the means of the principal cocoa producers, and, as argued in Section 12, could also be provided by the industrialized world at a fraction of what is now being spent on debt-forgiveness. As noted, commodity money does not possess all of the positive traits that should characterize an ideal currency (the holy trinity). The most troubling failure would be the potential for erratic and destabilizing monetary policy. The numbers presented here suggest that it is unlikely that such a difficulty would develop if the target price is appropriately chosen, as the resulting swings in the money supply are relatively small.