Dollarisation waves: new evidence from a comprehensive international bond database

We investigate how the US dollar's prominence in the denomination of international debt securities has evolved in recent decades, using a comprehensive global data set with far more extensive coverage than data sets used in prior literature. We find no monotonic dollarisation or de-dollarisation trend; instead, the dollar's share exhibits a wavelike pattern. We document three dollarisation waves since the 1960s. The last wave, following the global financial crisis, lifted the dollar's share nearly back to its level at the euro's launch in 2000. Our findings are robust to composition and currency valuation effects as well as alternative data definitions.

JEL classification: F3, F41, G15

Keywords: international debt securities, currency denomination, nationality and residence basis, reserve currencies, banks, non-bank financial institutions, nonfinancial corporations

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