Saturday, March 3, 2012

Icelandic-Canadian Monetary Union?

From the Globe and Mail:
Canadian ambassador to Iceland Alan Bones had planned to deliver remarks to a conference on the future of the Icelandic Krona, making it clear that if Iceland decided to adopt the Canadian dollar, with all its inherent risks, Canada was ready to talk.
But his speech, slated for Saturday, was abruptly cancelled when news of the remarks was reported in Iceland and Canada, led by The Globe and Mail.
“Once we got wind of [the speech] and it went through the approval channels, we decided it was not an appropriate venue,” said Joseph Lavoie, Foreign Minister John Baird’s press secretary. “It’s a political event. So that the decision was made that it’s not an appropriate event for him to speak at . . . While he may have thought about delivering those remarks, those remarks won’t be delivered.”
Mr. Lavoie pointed to a statement issued late Friday by the department as the government’s official position.....
There’s a compelling economic case why Iceland would want to adopt the Canadian dollar. It offers the tantalizing prospect of a stable, liquid currency that roughly tracks global commodity prices, nicely matching Iceland’s own economy, which is dependent on fish and aluminum exports, and in the future, energy.
There’s also a more sentimental reason. They’re both cold, Arctic countries.
“The average person looks at it this way: Canada is a younger version of the U.S. Canada has more natural resources than the U.S., it’s less developed, has more land, lots of water,” explained Heidar Gudjonsson, an economist and chairman of the Research Centre for Social and Economic Studies, Iceland’s largest think tank.
Why would Iceland want to do that?  The only thing that got them out of their economic disaster was the ability to devalue their currency.  Canada is doing great on the China resource boom, so their currency is extremely strong right now.  But if China's economy tanks and commodity prices collapse, the Canadian dollar is going to plummet.  So the fact that both are commodity-based economies would make the currency moves very procyclical.  I would think the short term benefits of joining with the Canadians could very well be outweighed by the potential costs of such a currency adjustment.  The article makes the point that Iceland is the smallest country with its own currency, but I would think the freedoms provided by controlling your own currency would outweigh the difficulties.

I also like the line about Canada being a younger version of the U.S.  I've always gotten a little brother vibe from Canada's relations with the United States

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