Central matters here are, of course, investment horizons, how buying and selling is arranged and the degree of diversification across companies and geographical regions. Another parameter is, as indicated, the  4  Morris, Stephen and Hyun Song Shin (1999): Oxford Review of Economic Policy, vol. 15, no 3.  life cycle; the possibility of saving for the long run is restricted by how much capital is likely to be needed in the nearer future. Admittedly, this process has to some extent begun already. However, the decisive steps lie ahead.
For ten years, therefore, Iraq had two currencies: one issued by the official government and the other backed by no government at all. The Swiss dinar continued to circulate in the North, even though backed by no formal government, central bank, nor any law of legal tender. For a fiat currency this was an unusual situation. Whatever gave the Swiss dinar its value was not the promise of the official Iraqi government, or indeed any other government.13 Although there was little or no trade between North and South Iraq, both the Swiss and Saddam dinars were traded against the dollar. The implied Swiss to Saddam dinar cross-exchange rate from 1997 onwards is shown in Chart 3.14  Chart 3: Saddam/Swiss Dinar exchange rate, Jul 1997-Oct 2003 Saddam/Swiss Dinars (log scale) 400  200  100  50 Jul-97  Jul-98  Jul-99  Jul-00  Jul-01  Jul-02  Jul-03  Source: United Nations, Central Bank of Iraq  After 1993 the Swiss dinar deviated from parity and rose to around 300 Saddam dinars to the Swiss dinar by the time Saddam’s regime was deposed in 2003. The appreciation of the Swiss dinar is  13  At no stage did the Kurdish groups lay claim to the Swiss dinar as their currency - they had no control over it - as shown by the interview given to Gulf News on 30 January 2003 by the Kurdistan Regional Government Prime Minister Barzani who said, “We don’t have our own currency”.