Asian central banks react more strongly to currency appreciations than depreciations and more to nominal effective exchange rates (NEERs) than to bilateral US dollar rates. This rationalizes the relative exchange rate stability and the sustained reserve accumulation in the region.

Taiwan is among the world's largest holders of international reserves, having accumulated US $350 billion of foreign exchange as of end 2009. Despite its significance, since it is not a member of the IMF, Taiwan has been relatively under-studied compared to many of its other Asian counterparts....

"There has been much interest in understanding various dimensions of the growth and integration of emerging Asia with the rest of the world, particularly with regard to international capital flows and external financing. Nonetheless, serious academic work in this area has lagged somewhat...

An Asian Currency Unit (ACU) index is constructed using an alternative procedure which minimizes a basket or portfolio of assets expressed in terms of national currencies. Using this estimated ACU index and an ACU Deviation Indicator, the main finding of this study based on the current...