Dollarization in Ecuador: A Post-Keynesian Analysis

Ecuador's dollarization was no marginal optimization decision. It was fundamental, dramatic and designed to completely transform central elements of the economy. Since orthodox, a-historical perspectives are inadequate in explaining such significant policy reversals, the paper uses a "post-keynesian institutionalist" explanatory framework (PKI). An Appendix surveys the twenty-year evolution of this effort to combine post-keynesian analysis with institutionalism. The paper's sections critique three orthodox explanations of dollarization, showing why they are unsatisfactory accounts of Ecuador's experience, examines the heterodox literature on exchange rate issues, introduces the PKI concepts used to explain Ecuador's dollarization, considers the actual dollarization process in Ecuador from a PKI perspective, and finally extrapolates from that treatment to the