ریسک و پاداش: جایگزینی ارز و پذیرش پزو مکزیک توسط شرکت ها در مرز های جنوبی ایالات متحده

This paper explores the usage of a soft currency in a hard currency environment. A stratified random sample of 300 firms based along the U.S. side of the Texas-Mexico border was utilized to determine the degree and nature of the acceptance of the Mexican peso in retail transactions. Our results suggest about one-quarter of all retail firms in the Texas border MSAs of El Paso, Laredo, and the Lower Rio Grande Valley (McAllen and Brownsville) accept the Mexican peso. A logistical regression to determine what factors were significant in the firm-level decision to accept Mexican pesos indicates that location within the border area, distance from a border crossing, firm size, firm type (retail category), and presence (local, regional or national firm) were all significant in the decision to accept/reject the peso.

Tens of thousands of people a day travel north from Mexico and cross the border into Texas, both on foot and in vehicles.1 A vast majority of these individuals make the trip to the border cities specifically to shop, or will shop in conjunction with other activities. A common occurrence in these transactions is the use of Mexican pesos as the medium of exchange and not U.S. dollars. What makes this shopping “event” of not only practical interest to businesses, but also of academic interest to international economists and international business researchers is the ease of movement of a “soft” currency platform (the Mexican peso) into a “hard” currency economic environment. Retail businessmen and women in the region of study have long understood the efficacy of accepting dual currencies in an attempt to attract and maintain customers. Yet empirical investigations have not addressed the occurrence of the use of a soft currency in a U.S dollar-based economy. This is an understandably unique phenomenon to observe and at the same time theoretically sound in its happening. The present research seeks to examine to what degree retail transactions take place along the Texas side of the U.S.-Mexican border in Mexican pesos. Additionally, we seek to better understand why the purchase of retail goods and services along the border in Texas take place in Mexican pesos when U.S. dollars are widely available. The remainder of this paper is organized as follows, Section 2 surveys the literature, Section 3 details the methodology, Section 4 describes the data, Section 5 presents the model and results, Section 6 discusses the results, and Section 7 concludes the paper.

There is no question that Mexican pesos are exchanged for goods and services in three major areas in the United States along the border with Mexico. Out of three hundred sampled firms in May of 2002, a little over one-quarter of them do indeed accept pesos. For those firms that do not accept pesos, 12% had at one time thought they might but did not take the step to do so. We would expect some firms to make the decision of accepting or not accepting pesos, on the margin after weighing the costs and benefits of such an action. Other firms are steadfast in their decisions of acceptance or not. This study has measured, at one point in time, the actions of those firms sampled. Of those firms that do accept pesos, the odds of acceptance are higher if they are local or regionally owned and located in Laredo. However, the variables and their significance begin to answer only part of the question. We argue that the decision of acceptance is made with the goals of the firm in mind and that firms will weigh the benefits and costs of accepting pesos. If the perceived net benefits are greater than zero they will choose to accept. Why is it more likely that local firms and those located in Laredo will accept pesos? To begin with, locally owned firms may have a more intimate knowledge of the economic environment on both sides of the border and feel the risks are low when accepting pesos. Whereas a national firm driven by their experience on a broader stage would feel that the benefits do not outweigh the costs. It is also our contention that Laredo's economic and cultural environments play an important role in increasing the odds that firms located there will accept pesos. Laredo is the busiest southern port in terms of trade. In 2002 almost $47 billion dollars worth of goods flowed through this border city.10 In addition, a large amount of non-commercial traffic moves through on its way into interior Mexico and the United States. Culturally, Laredo is the most Hispanic (and Mexican) of the three locations in our sample reinforcing the economic links with complementary familial bonds. This intimate relationship that the city shares with Mexico goes a long way, we believe, to help erase doubts in the minds of shop owners and patrons. As was mentioned earlier the peso has declined in value against the dollar, moving to 11.2:1 on July 6, 2005. What has been the effect of the exchange rate moving above the 10:1 so commonly used in during the time of this study? If the 10:1 rate holds, and we speculate that in many cases it is, firms would be discounting goods and services for their peso using customers. This study has added an important component to, and extended the literature focusing on currency substitution. While the concept of currency substitution is broadly defined, ranging from converting whole economies from a domestic currency to a foreign currency as a unit of account and store of value (Ecuador for example), to simply using a foreign currency in exchange for goods and services, this study is couched in the latter definition. As Calvo and Végh (1993) point out, the public in high inflationary countries will turn to a stable foreign currency as a medium of exchange. The use of a hard, stable currency (such as the U.S. dollar) in replacement of a currency whose value is unpredictable is becoming more commonplace. We argue and show that currency substitution can take place at the firm level (medium of exchange) not just with a recognized hard currency, but one that has traditionally been considered risky (soft) it terms of the fluctuation in its value, the Mexican Peso. Most importantly the transactions take place not in Mexico, but across the border in the United States. We feel the results of this study will provide yet another manner in which to look at the topic of currency substitution and believe there are numerous examples around the world of similar phenomenon yet to be analyzed.