Dollar dominance in the international reserve system: An update
Published:
3 months ago
Source:
3News
The US dollar continues to cede ground to nontraditional currencies in global foreign exchange reserves, but it remains the preeminent reserve currency
Serkan Arslanalp, Barry Eichengreen , Chima Simpson-Bell.
Dollar dominance-the outsized role of the US dollar in the world economy-has been brought into focus recently as the robustness of the US economy, tighter monetary policy and heightened geopolitical risk have contributed to a higher greenback valuation. At the same time, economic fragmentation and the potential reorganization of global economic and financial activity into separate, nonoverlapping blocs could encourage some countries to use and hold other international and reserve currencies. Recent data from the IMF's Currency Composition of Official Foreign Exchange Reserves (COFER) point to an ongoing gradual decline in the dollar's share of allocated foreign reserves of central banks and governments. Strikingly, the reduced role of the US dollar over the last two decades has not been matched by increases in the shares of the other "big four" currencies-the euro, yen, and pound. Rather, it has been accompanied by a rise in the share of what we have called nontraditional reserve currencies, including the Australian dollar, Canadian dollar, Chinese renminbi, South Korean won, Singaporean dollar, and the Nordic currencies.