Do high interest rates defend currencies during speculative attacks?: New evidence

A recent paper by Kraay (2003) documents the lack of any systematic associationbetween monetary policy and the outcome of a speculative attack. This paper extendsKraay’s work by introducing an improved measure of monetary policy and an additionalcountry-specific fundamental, short-term corporate debt, to capture balance sheet vulnerabilities emphasized by the recent currency crises literature. The results show that for low levels of short-term corporate debt, raising interest rates lowers the probability of a successful attack. This effect decreases and eventually reverses for higher levels of debt. These findings contrast earlier empirical evidence and imply a fundamental reconsideration of the role of monetary policy during currency crises.