Liability dollarization and the bank balance sheet channel

Emerging markets' financial institutions often face a mismatch in the currency denominations of their liabilities (foreign currency-denominated debt raised from foreign lenders) and their assets (domestic currency loans to domestic borrowers). We study the effect of this mismatch on monetary policy in a sticky-price, dynamic general-equilibrium small open economy model in which the country default-risk premium depends on domestic banks' balance sheets due to asymmetric information. A fixed exchange rate rule that stabilizes bank balance sheets offers greater stability than does an interest rate rule that targets inflation to offset the real effects of sticky-prices. (C) 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.