This paper provides evidence on the effects of capital controls. We show that controls have been associated with significant differences in macroeconomic behaviour, especially in monetary policy. While they have not prevented speculative attacks, they have provided the breathing space needed to...

This paper presents an empirical analysis of speculative attacks on pegged exchange rates in 22 countries between 1967 and 1992. We define speculative attacks or crises as large movements in exchange rates, interest rates, and international reserves. We develop stylized facts concerning the...

This Paper reviews the controversy over China’s exchange rate regime. Placing the issue in the context of the literature on exit strategies, it argues that now is the best time for China to exit from its peg. Moving to a managed float would be in the country’s own interest; it would help the...

We present new data documenting European capital issues in major financial centers from 1919 to 1932. Push factors (conditions in international capital markets) perform better than pull factors (conditions in the borrowing countries) in explaining the surge and reversal in capital flows. In...

This paper is concerned with the fact that the incidence of speculative attacks tend to be temporally correlated; that is, currency crises appear to pass ‘contagiously’ from one country to another. The paper provides a survey of the theoretical literature, and analyses the contagious nature of...

This paper is a first attempt to evaluate the economic effects of the Marshall Plan. We find that US aid had a significant impact on Europe's recovery from World War II. The recipients of large amounts of Marshall aid recovered significantly faster than other industrial countries. Strikingly,...

We use time-series methods to estimate a simple aggregate supply and demand model in order to analyse the comparative performance of fixed and flexible exchange rate systems and test competing hypotheses designed to explain shifts between exchange rate regimes. The paper provides a coherent...

Alexander Swoboda is one of the originators of the bipolar view that capital mobility creates pressure for countries to abandon intermediate exchange rate arrangements in favor of greater flexibility and harder pegs. This paper takes another look at the evidence for this hypothesis using two...

The international monetary system has passed through a succession of phases characterized alternatively by the dominance of fixed and flexible exchange rates. How are these repeated shifts between fixed and flexible rate regimes to be understood? The present paper specifies and tests six...

We show that the variables pointed to by the theory of optimum currency areas (OCAs) help to explain patterns of exchange rate variability and intervention across countries. But OCA considerations affect exchange market pressures and intervention in different ways. Exchange market pressures...