Composition of Foreign Exchange Reserves

Now for some real data: the International Monetary Fund's working paper from July 2000 entitled The Currency Composition of Foreign Exchange Reserves (warning: big .pdf file) includes some hard data and offers some educated conclusions. Based on past practice throughout the 70s, 80s, and 90s, it seems that changes to reserve currency composition at central banks have tended to be gradual over time and not precipitous. In addition, there are other good reasons to believe that a shift from the US dollar and toward the euro would also be gradual. For example, reliance on a reserve currency has been greatly motivated in the past on stable economic policies by the issuing country's central bank, so it would take some time for the European Central Bank's policies to inspire such confidence.