Trust is a way of adaption to the uncertainty of future by means of ignoring this uncertainty. In other words, trust is the simplest and the most efficient way to cope with uncertainty.
This pseudo-scientific definition of trust can be understood better based on the results of Table 1. How many goods will you be able to buy for one million of Belarusian rubles, if you save them in March 2016 and use them in a year (we’re factoring out the future denomination)? Even financial specialists cannot answer this question. What should non-specialists do in this situation? The simplest way is to convert rubles into a currency which they trust more. According to 52.7% of Belarusians, this currency is the U.S. dollar. Over the last ten years neither euro, nor Russian ruble couldn’t compete with the U.S. dollar for the role of currency of savings.
Table 1. Dynamics of answering the question: “Which currency do you trust more?”, %
| Variant of answer | 06’06 | 06’11 | 03’13 | 03’16 |
| U.S. dollars | 46 | 53 | 53.6 | 52.7 |
| Euro | 18 | 20 | 15.3 | 15.4 |
| Belarusian ruble | 28 | 17 | 19.7 | 20.6 |
| Russian ruble | 1 | 4 | 7.9 | 6.0 |
Over the same time level of trust to Belarusian ruble dropped by almost a third. If you remember that in 2006 Belarusian model was at its highest, then you should recognize that this denial of trust to Belarusian ruble is rather rational.
Even among A. Lukashenko’s supporters “trust rating” of dollars is higher than of rubles: 39.4% vs. 37.8%. Advantage of dollar doesn’t exceed static error, but still…
As for A. Lukashenko’s supporters, they are free from ideological setups and the advantage of dollar over Belarusian ruble is almost 10-fold: 63.8% vs. 6.7%.
Fears of another devaluation jumped from 32.2% in September 2013 up to 48.3% in March 2016 (+16.1 points). Among A. Lukashenko’s supporters increase amounted to 11.6 points, among his opponents – to 15.3 points (Table 2).
Table 2. Dynamics of answering the question: “Do you fear another devaluation of Belarusian ruble in the next few months?” depending on attitude to A. Lukashenko, %
| Variant of answer | 09’13 | 03’16 | Attitude to A. Lukashenko | |
| Trust | Don’t trust | |||
| It is a real threat | 32.3 | 48.3 | 28.8 | 66.6 |
| It is possible, but unlikely | 39.7 | 33.7 | 44.1 | 23.1 |
| It won’t happen | 20.5 | 9.6 | 15.3 | 5.6 |
| DA/NA | 7.5 | 8.4 | 11.8 | 4.6 |
Such is the viewpoint on the near-term outlook for Belarusian ruble formed by public opinion after the end of two-year anomaly.
The government’s and the National Bank’s natural aspiration for de-dollarization of economy has no results again. Dollarization of economy is not a self-sufficient phenomenon; it is a consequence of dollarization of minds. Belarusians demonstrate high level of rationality in the questions regarding lowering uncertainty and maintaining purchase power of their savings. Otherwise they won’t survive.