We investigate the case for official dollarization in a selection of Latin American countries. We argue that the monetary shock absorbers of base control, foreign exchange reserve sterilization and exchange rate policy should be retained the more volatile is a country's actual real exchange...

We show that expansionary monetary policy causes exchange rate overshooting due to the secondary repercussion comes through the reaction of firms to changed asset prices and the firms' decisions to invest in real capital. This overshooting effect adds to any overshooting that occurs through the...

The consensus view is that central banks under currency boards do not have tools for active monetary policy. In this paper, we analyze the foreign exchange fee as a monetary policy instrument that can be used by a central bank under a currency board. We develop a general equilibrium model...

The Taylor rule has become one of the most studied strategies for monetary policy. Yet, little is known whether the Federal Reserve follows a non-linear Taylor rule. This paper employs the smooth transition regression model and asks the question: does the Federal Reserve change its policy-rule...

We develop a two-sector economy where each sector is classified as classical/Keynesian (contract/noncontract) in the labor market and traded/nontraded in the product market. We consider the effects of changes in monetary and exchange rate policy on sectoral and aggregate prices and outputs for...