Monetary sterilization and dual nominal anchors: some Caribbean examples

This paper notes that a high sterilization coefficient plus a de facto pegged exchange rate indicates the existence of dual nominal anchors. The econometric evidence presented shows that several Caribbean economies with fixed exchange rate regimes also possess high sterilization coefficients. Given open capital accounts in the various economies, the paper argues that this finding contravenes the money neutrality thesis, which holds that only one nominal anchor can prevail in the long-term. The paper presents a simple theoretical model to explain this phenomenon. The model combines the liquidity preference of commercial banks with an augmented uncovered interest parity equation.