Dollarization Moves From Argentine Blueprint to Venezuela’s Legislature
Advisers in Venezuela and Argentina are advancing competing paths away from unstable national currencies
Inside the committees of Venezuela’s National Assembly, proposals for formal dollarization are being shaped by economists whose work has also influenced monetary debates in Argentina. Steve Hanke, a professor of applied economics at Johns Hopkins University, is serving as Special Adviser on Economic, Monetary and Energy Affairs to Congressman Antonio Ecarri, while Venezuela’s dollar-based commercial system remains under discussion.
More than 50% to 60% of commercial transactions in Venezuela take place in U.S. dollars as the bolívar faces hyperinflation, and lawmakers are debating whether to formalize the currency regime. Hanke is also a Senior Contributing Columnist at Fortune. In Buenos Aires, Emilio Ocampo is a professor at Universidad del CEMA, where his work has focused on dollarization, as Argentina continues to address high inflation and monetary instability.
The proposals place South America’s central banks at the center of a dispute over whether they should be preserved as monetary institutions or replaced in a dollar-based system.
Ocampo co-authored *Dolarización: Una solución para la Argentina* in 2022 and *Argentina dolarizada* in 2024. President Javier Milei initially named Ocampo to lead Argentina’s Central Bank with an explicit mandate to close it and move the country to the U.S. dollar. Implementation was later postponed as the government pursued broader fiscal stabilization and currency competition.
Ecuador adopted the U.S. dollar as legal tender in 2000 under President Jamil Mahuad during a catastrophic banking crisis. The country’s dollarization record has since served as South America’s primary benchmark for official dollarization over the past quarter-century. Hanke’s latest book, co-edited with Francisco Zalles, is *La Dolarización en Ecuador: El Triunfo del Orden Espontáneo* (2026).
Having advised Venezuelan President Rafael Caldera from 1995 to 1996, Hanke is now working in the office of Ecarri, a lawmaker in Venezuela’s National Assembly. Ecarri’s office is engaged in legislative debates over monetary stabilization as commercial transactions continue to use the U.S. dollar alongside the bolívar.
