The view held by Keynes that there was a speculative appreciation of sterling prior to its return to the gold standard, has been challenged by Gregor Smith and Todd Smith, who argue that expectations of return must have weakened the currency. The authors demonstrate that the positive but...

This paper considers a number of policy measures that may be used to preserve a fixed exchange rate. These are analyzed in a model where a switch of exchange-rate regime is triggered by an optimizing policymaker in response to extreme economic conditions. It is shown how a number of policy...

Many recent papers suggest that the basic flex-price target zone model does not perform well empirically. This paper investigates the testable implications of a sticky-price target zone model and finds that, to a limited extent, it has a better empirical performance than the simplest flex-price...

Is sovereign borrowing so different from corporate debt that there is no need for bankruptcy-style procedures to protect debtors? With the waiver of immunity, sovereign debtors who already face severe disruption from short-term creditors grabbing their currency reserves are also exposed to...

When the risk premium in the US stock market fell substantially, Shiller (2000) attributed this to a bubble driven by psychological factors. An alternative explanation is that the observed risk premium may be reduced by one-sided intervention policy on the part of the Federal Reserve which leads...

This paper develops a model where agents learn about the probability of devaluations in a fixed exchange rate regim e. The true probability of devaluation is assumed to be low (or zero) b ut agents are initially unsure about the government's intentions and st art with a high prior belief....

We study a model of sovereign debt crisis that combines problems of creditor co-ordination and debtor moral hazard. In the face of sovereign default, the need to give appropriate incentives to the debtor leads to excessive 'rollover failure' by creditors. We discuss how the incidence of crises...

Using a variant of the Cagan (1956) model with rational expectations, this paper shows that expected stabilization can result in a budget deficit in excess of the maximum inflation tax. A cap on the deficit dampens inflation expectations and raises real balances, thus increasing the yield of the...

Collapsing credit markets have been blamed for the depth and persistence of the Great Depression in the United States. Could similar mechanisms have played a role in ending the East Asian economic miracle--and in creating fragility in global financial markets? After a brief account of the nature...