The Marshall Islands use the U.S. dollar as their currency. This has the advantages of not having the expense of running a central bank, the currency is completely convertible, and price stability is reasonably well ensured as the Marshallese do not have the ability to print currency. The rate of inflation has been in single digits in the period from 1993 to 1997, ranging from 4.8 percent to 9.6 percent. The only drawback for "dollarized" economies is that they do not earn the seigniorage (profit from the minting of coins) they would gain if they issued their own currency. The increasing number of countries that have been attracted to using the U.S. dollar in place of a domestic currency has caused the United States to consider sharing some of the seigniorage it earns as currency issuer.