Weekend Economists Think on the Starving Armenians February 20-22, 2015

[Demeter]

23. Here are all the countries that don’t have a currency of their own

http://qz.com/260980/meet-the-countries-that-dont-use-their-own-currency/

Countries that only use a foreign currency

US dollar: Ecuador, East Timor, El Salvador, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Palau, Turks and Caicos, British Virgin Islands, Zimbabwe.

Euro: Andorra, Kosovo, Monaco, Montenegro, San Marino, Vatican City.

Countries in a currency union

Euro: Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Spain.

East Caribbean dollar: Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Grenada, St. Kitts and the Nevis, St. Lucia, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines.

The successor to the British West Indies dollar was created in 1976. The East Caribbean dollar is fixed to the US dollar at a rate of 2.7 to 1. The only member of the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States to not take part is the British Virgin Islands—which uses the US dollar, of course.

CFA franc: Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Mali, Niger, Senegal, and Togo.

It may surprise you to know that 14 countries in Africa also are dependent on the euro, albeit indirectly. Strictly speaking, there are two currencies between them: Benin, Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Niger, Senegal, and Togo use the West African franc. Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, and Gabon use the Central African franc. Both currencies are at parity and their notes are interchangeable across all 14 countries, but they have different monetary authorities.

The CFA franc was created in 1945 to spare France’s colonies the pain that the post-World War II revaluation in the French franc would do to their much smaller economies. The CFA franc was set at fixed exchange rates against its French counterpart, and is now fixed against the euro.

THEN THERE ARE PEGS TO THE DOLLAR OR OTHER BIG-NAME CURRENCY, AND MULTIPLE-CURRENCY NATIONS (THE US AND CANADA COULD BE CONSIDERED SUCH)

WELL WORTH THE READ!