Why Ecuador Uses The Dollar

By Stacey Vanek Smith,

Cardiff Garcia

Published November 1, 2018 at 4:35 PM EDT

Bianca Beryl is a 9-year-old South Florida listener that came to us with a few interesting questions on Ecuador's currency:

Why did Ecuador change from the sucre to the dollar? Does it affect the money supply in the U.S.? How did they get the dollars there? And why aren't other countries using the U.S. dollar?

We spoke with economist Sebastián Edwards to answer Bianca's questions.

Note: If you have any questions you would like to share with us, email us at indicator@npr.org.

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Stacey Vanek Smith

Stacey Vanek Smith is the co-host of NPR's The Indicator from Planet Money. She's also a correspondent for Planet Money, where she covers business and economics. In this role, Smith has followed economic stories down the muddy back roads of Oklahoma to buy 100 barrels of oil; she's traveled to Pune, India, to track down the man who pitched the country's dramatic currency devaluation to the prime minister; and she's spoken with a North Korean woman who made a small fortune smuggling artificial sweetener in from China.

See stories by Stacey Vanek Smith