Harvard Economist Says Dollarization Won't Fix Venezuela

Venezuela faces famine if it can’t reverse its collapse in output, and ditching the currency won’t do anything to help, according to Professor Ricardo Hausmann, a Harvard economist who served as the nation’s planning minister in the 1990s.

Hausmann denounced as “magical thinking” proposals to adopt the dollar, made by the leading opposition presidential candidate. This would require currency reserves that the country doesn’t have, he said.