The huge increase in international reserve holdings by Asian countries since the 1997 crisis has been one of the most important recent developments on the international financial scene. These buildups have contributed substantially to concerns about the creation of excessive global liquidity....

China has been stockpiling international reserves at an extremely rapid pace since the late 1990s and has surpassed Japan to become the largest reserve holder in the world. This paper undertakes an empirical investigation to assess the extent of de facto sterilization and capital mobility using...

China has been stockpiling international reserves at an extremely rapid pace since the late 1990s and has surpassed Japan to become the largest reserve holder in the world. This paper undertakes an empirical investigation to assess the extent of de facto sterilization and capital mobility using...

This paper is interested in the nexus between external debt and export competiveness. Specifically, while we find that once external debt exceeds a certain threshold it is negatively associated with export growth, we are interested in determining whether the tipping points vary based on country...

The real exchange rate is one of the most important price variables in macroeconomics as changes in it have implications for both external competitiveness as well as internal sectoral resource allocation. This paper decomposes real exchange rate volatility into its two components for a panel of...

We empirically investigate whether reserve currency preferences have been a source of stability for the international monetary system. Our findings suggest that reserve-hoarding countries, especially the emerging/developing countries, tend to adopt a stabilizing diversification strategy in their...

Why are some currency crises followed by economic contractions while others are not? This paper is an attempt at answering this query. In particular, we investigate two closely related questions. First, we explore whether there is a difference in the output effects of a devaluation during...

There is a broad consensus that the soft US dollar pegs operated by a number of Asian countries prior to 1997 contributed to the regional financial crisis of 1997-98. There is, however, much less agreement on the types of exchange rate regimes operated by many Asian countries since the crisis....

Since the Asian crisis it has been recognized that exchange rate and monetary policy strategies must involve a “fairly high” element of flexibility rather than a single-minded defense of a particular rate. One way this flexibility might be introduced is by a country adopting an open economy...

When analyzing the appropriate response for monetary policy during a currency crisis, it is important to keep in mind two distinct channels: the effect of raising interest rates on exchange rates and the direct effect of exchange rate changes on output. The first pertains to the monetary side of...