Abstract:
Israelis commonly hold substantial foreign currency balances at home. This paper examines the phenomenon of these "closet dollars." We show that closet dollars are attractive only if there exists a positive probability that domestic deposits will pay negative dollar rates of return. If such negative rates of return are associated with changes in the depositor's tax bill, then low-tax consumers are most attracted to closet dollars. In addition we show that potential central bank default and transactions costs will tend to increase the volume of closet dollars.