We analyze in this paper how the mutual dependence of private sector expectations in different countries on one another influences the stability of fixed exchange rate regimes. The crisis probabilities of countries trading with one another are interdependent because wage setters react to an...

Monthly economic indicators support policy analysis of current economic developments and forecasting. This paper presents an overview of the data and statistical requirements to develop those indicators taking into account resource constraints that LIC typically face. We review statistical...

This paper uses panel data for 19 OECD countries and finds support for the hypothesis that a greater degree of product variety relative to the United States helps to explain relative per capita GDP levels. The empirical work relies upon some direct measures of product variety calculated from...

We introduce local and foreign investors in a simple model of speculative attacks. Local investors have less tolerance for overvaluation of the fixed exchange rate because they tend to incur lower costs when taking a short position and possess better information, and because of moral hazard...

In the 1990s, currency crises in Europe, Mexico, and Asia have drawn worldwide attention to speculative attacks on government-controlled exchange rates and have prompted researchers to undertake new theoretical and empirical analysis of these events. This paper provides some perspective on this...

The answer seems affirmative. We compare currency carry trades with an investment strategy based on currency fundamentals: taking a long (short) position in undervalued (overvalued) currencies. Carry trades have high risk-adjusted returns, but are subject to ""crash risk."" In contrast, the...

A brief survey of the literature on speculative attacks is provided. The nature and causes of balance-of-payments crises, the implications for the behavior of the current account and the real exchange rate are discussed. Also, potential areas for future research on balance-of-payments crises are...

The paper shows that changing market beliefs about currency risk can generate a self-fulfilling speculative attack on a fixed exchange rate. The attack does not require a later change in policies to make it profitable. This is illustrated by introducing an endogenous risk premium into a...