Investment and, for a part, production, came abruptly to a halt. When such a shock occurs, public provision of liquidity has to substitute to private provision. In a domestic context, this is the function of the lender of last resort. But when the shortage is about foreign currency liquidity, this role has to be played by foreign exchange reserves. Foreign exchange reserves Following the 1997–98 crisis, emerging countries have constantly sought to expand their foreign exchange reserves. The emerging markets’ average reserve ratio has more than quintupled from 4 percent to over 20 percent of GDP since 1990 (Obstfeld et al. 2009, Matteo y Lagos et al., 2009). One cannot assume, however, that equilibrium has been reached and that the demand for reserves will stabilize. On the contrary, there are strong indications that this trend will persist, or even be amplified, following the crisis. 6  BIS Review 76/2010  How much reserves are enough? Theoretical reasoning would balance the benefits of holding reserves against their cost, with some notion that there is an optimum. On the benefit side, reserves can be detained or accumulated for a variety of motives:   to smooth out the impact on consumption of shocks on the current account, which is the most basic and traditional motive, even in the absence of international capital flows    as a result or by-product of foreign market intervention to prevent exchange rate appreciation. This is usually defined as a “mercantilist” motive.
Such a scenario could prove attractive both for capital exporters (through better returns on excess savings) and capital importers, which may not have the option of isolating themselves from international capital markets anyway. Experience shows, however, that an open international financial system is not inherently stable and, therefore, very dependent on a strong infrastructures and conditions. The move towards a financially open world would, at the very least, have to be supported by robust arrangements on international liquidity provision. Pending ambitious reforms, a lot can still be done to provide investors with stable stores of value. One very promising avenue would be, for countries which have surplus savings, to develop their own internal stores of value by expanding the range of safe and liquid financial assets available to domestic and international investors. By doing so, they would achieve several goals at the same time. They would bring more efficiency in the financing of their own domestic needs. They would provide their own investors with a broader range of choices. They would also eliminate some of the currently existing incentives to export capital in order to protect its value. They would contribute to reduce the “asset shortage” with all its negative consequences, including international imbalances and the financing of asset bubbles. Financial development in many countries would address both the causes of international imbalances and some of the roots of the financial crisis. References: Adrian, T. and H. S. Shin (2008), “Liquidity and Leverage”, Federal Reserve Bank of New York Staff Report No 328.