Korzyści netto z akumulacji rezerw dewizowych przez gospodarki wschodzące w świetle doświadczeń kryzysu finansowego lat 2008–2009
Net Benefits of Foreign Exchange Reserves Accumulation by Emerging Economies: Lessons From the Global Financial Crisis of 2008–2009

Summary/Abstract: This paper examines the role of foreign exchange reserves in crisis mitigation and considers the question whether large stocks of reserves contributed to resilience to financial crisis of 2008–2009. In theoretical part net benefits of reserves accumulation are discussed and macroeconomic model of optimal reserves is presented. The optimal level of reserves for emerging market economies in the pre-crisis period is estimated in empirical part. Together with a whole range of controls these estimates are used to determine to what extent the gap between actual and optimal levels of reserves explain diversity of emerging market economies resilience to the global financial crisis. The findings are as follows: First, countries with a larger stock of reserves were indeed more resilient to the crisis. Inconclusive findings of previous studies were the result of using the actual level of reserves rather than the gap between actual and optimal levels. Second, the relation identified was stable and robust to the inclusion of many control variables used in other empirical studies. Third, majority of countries in the sample had their reserves above the optimal level. This, together with the relation between cost of the crisis and reserves, lends support to the conjecture that the optimal level of reserves could be underestimated.

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