The choices of invoicing international trade: state of play, determinants, inertia of the currency.

Summary Despite apparent competition among currencies, the U.S. dollar is the currency adopted by the majority of international trade participants, both exporters and importers. This is shown by the statistical overview proposed in this thesis. Based on this observation, the objective of this thesis is to explain the choice of invoicing currencies in international trade. Various determinants have been established in the academic literature to explain the choice of invoicing currencies. Three approaches, with substantially different methodologies, contribute to this, and can therefore be compared: the standard macroeconomic approach, the institutionalist approach, and the international political economy approach. The main result of this thesis is to show that the understanding of the choice of the US dollar cannot be satisfied with the determinants highlighted by the instrumental approaches to money that dominate international macroeconomics, and in which money is seen above all as a tool for maximizing individual utilities: their contributions are useful, but insufficient. By applying the institutionalist reading to international trade, the thesis introduces the importance of the actors' relationships of trust and adherence to money and to the order defended by its regulatory institutions. This importance is verified in the history of the twentieth century, both in the failure of currencies competing with the dollar, and in the persistence of the American currency itself.