Is There a Trend of Euroization of EU Countries Still Using Their National Currencies? Trade and Invoicing

Seven of the eight EU countries not yet using the euro as their legal tender undertook to adopt the common currency in the future. However, the actual moment of adoption may influence, e.g. the attitude of the population (households). Other needs for the use of the euro have a business sector that is managed considering current market conditions and opportunities. The prerequisite of this article is that within the non-EMU EU economies, due to the close ties to EMU members and the prospect of a future, albeit often uncertain, approach to the euro area, the gradual euroization of businesses takes place. Among other things, euroization should be reflected in foreign trade, namely in the currency of invoicing. Using the Eurostat data from 2010–2018 on import and export and the currency of non-EMU countries invoicing to third countries expressed in EUR, USD, national and other currencies, the links between invoicing currency, size of economies and exchange rate regime were sought. The aim was also to describe the actual trend of invoicing international trade to third countries outside the EU. According to the results of the analysis, it was found that the block of non-EMU countries rather euroizes and the importance of the national currency is rather declining. The level of growth of the share of the euro and the decline of the national currency has a different intensity for imports and different for exports. At the same time, it was found that in the case of imports in EUR and NC and exports in EUR, a possible relationship between the invoicing currency and the exchange rate regime can be identified. Last but not least, it was found that in the case of invoicing in EUR and NC (national currency), there is a relationship between the size of GDP and the invoicing currency.

Patterns in Invoicing Currency in Global Trade

This paper presents the most comprehensive and up-to-date panel data set of invoicing currencies in global trade. It provides data on the shares of exports and imports invoiced in US dollars, euros, and other currencies for more than 100 countries since 1990. The evidence from these data confirms findings from earlier research regarding the globally dominant role of the US dollar in invoicing – despite the comparatively smaller role of the US in global trade – and the overall stability of invoicing currency patterns. The evidence also points to several novel facts. First, both the US dollar and the euro have been increasingly used for invoicing even as the share of global trade accounted for by the US and the euro area has declined. Second, the euro is used as a vehicle currency in parts of Africa, and some European countries have seen significant shifts toward euro invoicing. Third, as suggested by the dominant currency paradigm, countries invoicing more in US dollars (euros) tend to experience greater US dollar (euro) exchange rate pass-through to their import prices; also, their trade volumes are more sensitive to fluctuations in these exchange rates.

Dollar Invoicing and the Heterogeneity of Exchange Rate Pass-Through

We show empirically that the variation across country pairs in exchange rate pass-through and trade elasticity is meaningfully explained by the dollar's dominance as invoicing currency. We use a hierarchical Bayesian approach to directly and flexibly model pass-through heterogeneity conditional on the invoicing currency share. We estimate that the importer's country-level dollar invoicing share explains 15 percent of the overall variance across trading pairs in dollar exchange rate pass-through into bilateral prices.