Devaluation is an integral part of adjustment in many developing countries, particularly relied upon by countries facing large external imbalances. A devaluation can only reduce trade imbalances if it translates to a real devaluation and if trade flows respond to relative prices in a significant...

Drawing on the neoclassical theory of international trade, this study investigates the limits of efficient diversification in low-income commodity exporting countries, and the fundamental importance of relative factor endowments for determining the commodity composition of international trade...

Exchange rate pass-through in a set of euro area prices along the pricing chain is examined in this paper. First, a vector autoregression (VAR) approach is used to analyze the joint time-series behavior of the euro exchange rate and a system of area-wide prices in response to an exchange rate...

The issue of whether the money supply can serve as a nominal anchor for the domestic price level under real exchange rate targeting is examined. When capital controls are perfect, so that there is complete separation between official and unofficial foreign exchange markets, the domestic...

The paper models an adjustable peg exchange rate arrangement as a policy rule with an escape clause under which the timing and magnitudes of realignments are the outcomes of policy optimization decisions. Under the assumptions that market participants are rational, risk averse, and fully...

International policy coordination is generally considered to be made less likely--and less profitable--by uncertainty about how the economy works. This paper offers a counter example, in which investors' increased uncertainty about portfolio preference makes coordination more beneficial. Without...

Under the assumption of no arbitrage, the credibility of an exchange rate target zone is tested by whether domestic interest rates fall within "rate-of-return bands" between the maximum and minimum home currency rate of return on a foreign investment in the absence of a devaluation. Under the...

This paper describes the operation of the Estonian currency board arrangement that has pegged the Estonian kroon to the deutsche mark since June 20, 1992, when Estonia left the ruble zone and introduced its own currency. The paper describes the institutional arrangements that were chosen for...

This paper examines the credibility of the exchange rate policy pursued by the Belgian monetary authorities of pegging the Belgian franc to a narrow fluctuation band around the deutsche mark, in the context of the exchange rate mechanism of the European Monetary System. Simple interest rate...