A Leading Indicators Approach to the Predictability of Currency

In this paper, we present a leading economic indicators approach to the predictability of currency crises in Turkey. After summarizing main theoretical models of currency crises and discussing the possible origins of financial crises in the European ERM countries (1992-93), Turkey (1994) and Southeast Asian countries (1997-98), we survey the empirical literature on the predictability of currency crises. Our leading economic indicators approach based on Burns and Mitchell (1946) shows that terms-of-trade, market-determined exchange rate over official exchange rate and some survey data can be considered as leading economic indicators of currency crises in Turkey.