The monetary policy transmission mechanism in a dollarized economy. The case of El Salvador

The aim of this paper is to determine the responses of the economic activity index of El Salvador to changes in the money supply, credit and the national interest rate, and the money supply and interest rate of the other Central American countries. The distinctive character of the work is that the Salvadoran economy was dollarized in 2001. The results indicate that no national variable elicits significant responses from the other national variables, but the Salvadoran economic activity index responds significantly to changes in the money supply and interest rates from other Central American countries.