This paper proposes a theoretical model that combines a present value model of the exchange rate with a variance-belief formation model to investigate the relationship between macroeconomic uncertainty and the exchange rate. The model emphasizes the risk premium as its core and incorporates...

Under a floating exchange rate and integrated financial markets an optimizing central bank acting under discretion to achieve domestic objectives generates a positive co-movement between the domestic and the foreign interest rate in a small open economy. A high degree of positive co-movement...

We provide a theory on currency dynamics, capital flows and conditions for emerging market economy central bank asset purchases to leave room for manoeuvre for conventional monetary policy. Local-currency asset purchases ease financial conditions and boost banks’ foreign borrowing capacity....

This paper assesses the stabilization properties of fixed versus flexible exchange rate regimes and aims to answer this research question: Does greater exchange rate flexibility help an economy’s adjustment to weather shocks? To address this question, the impact of weather shocks on real per...

We provide a theory on currency dynamics, capital flows and conditions for central bank asset purchases to leave room for manoeuvre on conventional monetary policy. Asset purchases ease financial conditions and boost banks’ foreign borrowing capacity. The ensuing capital inflows lead to an...

A classic argument for flexible exchange rates is that the exchange rate plays a 'shock-absorber' role in an open economy vulnerable to country-specific shocks. This paper presents a sharp counter-example to this argument within a very conventional open economy model. Countries are subject to...

Almost all developed economies at some time during the 1970s seemed supply-constrained. Even much of measured excess capacity was arguably redundant due to energy price shocks, environmental policy, and other structural flux of the 1970s. Little analytical work has been carried out on the...

This study analyzes the dynamics of exchange market pressure in Turkey by employing the Markov regime switching model for the period from January 2006 to December 2019. Our findings show that there are two regimes in the foreign exchange market, characterized as low- and high-pressure periods....

The continuing depreciation of the dollar stands out as one of the big policy issues. It has started to impinge on U.S. monetary policy; it influences the chances for international commercial diplomacy, and it is enhancing the move toward European monetary integration. Above all it leaves most...

In recent years, many countries have suffered severe financial crises, producing a staggering toll on their economies, particularly in emerging markets. One view blames fixed exchange rates-- soft pegs'--for these meltdowns. Adherents to that view advise countries to allow their currency to...

In this paper I discuss in what way, if any, the collapse of Argentina's experience with a currency board has affected the policy debate on the appropriate exchange rate regime in emerging and transition countries. More specifically, I deal with three issues: (1) I discuss some important aspects...

This paper contains an analysis of the role of international reserves under a regime of pegged exchange rates and under a regime of managed floating. It presents evidence on the stability of the demand for reserves during the periods 1963-72 and 1973-75. It is shown that the demand for reserves...

This paper investigates inconsistencies between countries' official exchange rate regime declarations (the so-called de jure exchange rate regimes) and their actual policy (de facto exchange rate regimes). These exchange rate regime gaps decrease the credibility of monetary policy and are...

Milton Friedman was a strong proponent of flexible exchange rates accompanied by a domestic monetary rule. He believed that such a combination would deliver superior economic performance and would also be more consistent with democratic principles than a regime based on fixed exchange rates and...

This paper assumes that the major industrial countries (and probably most other major countries) will continue to employ inflation targeting and allow their exchange rates to float, in the sense of accepting no obligation to hold the rate at any particular level. However, it points out that...

Milton Friedman’s famous 1953 essay, “The case for flexible exchange rates,” deals entirely with advanced nations. An interesting question is what Friedman thought about exchange rate and monetary regimes in emerging economies. In this paper I investigate how his views on the subject...

Using a new equity price-based measure of the global financial cycle, this paper evaluates the relative importance of global financial shocks for quarterly equity returns and output growths in a large sample of advanced and emerging economies, as well as in South Korea and China--two countries...

The Central Bank of Algeria has announced a managed float of the Algerian dinar since 1994. Yet, there are some substantial differences between various de facto classifications of Algeria's exchange rate regime. This study looks into the exchange rate regime of Algeria, aiming to identify de...

Milton Friedman's longstanding advocacy in favor of floating exchange rates has contributed to a mistaken belief that he opposed currency board regimes or outright dollarization. Nothing could be further from the truth. Over a period of almost five decades Friedman consistently made it clear...

This working paper was written by Yin-wong Cheung (University of California, Santa Cruz) and Kon S. Lai (California State University, Los Angeles).This study investigates whether greater nominal exchange rate flexibility aids real exchange rate adjustment based on data from dual exchange rates...

This paper integrates exchange-rate policy into a model of exchange- rate behavior, and examines the data econometrically to infer hypotheses about policy behavior in the 1970s. The model shows how unanticipated movements in money, the current account, and relative price levels will cause first...

Emerging economies are prone to crises triggered by external shocks. During these crises, should the central bank stabilize the currency or domestic interest rates? If the choice is outside the central bank's control, as in a currency board, are there good policy substitutes? We argue that these...

We use time-series methods to estimate a simple aggregate-supply aggregate-demand model in order to analyze the comparative performance of fixed- and flexible-exchange-rate systems and test competing hypotheses designed to explain shifts between exchange-rate regimes. The paper provides a...

The Asian crisis took place against a background of exchange rate regimes that were characterized as soft pegs. This has led many analysts to conclude that the peg did it' and that emerging markets (EMs) should just say no' to pegged exchange rates. We present evidence that EMs are very...

The concerns of macroeconomic policy in the industrial countries in recent years have shifted the focus of open-economy macroeconomics to new and interesting problems. Although no synthesis, or a fully coherent theory of policy, has yet emerged from this research, the results have already led to...

From the perspective of the late 1930s and 1940s the dominant view was that the inter-war currency experience was a financial disaster. The view is perfectly encapsulated in the League of Nations' publication The Inter-war Currency Experience, the bulk of which was written by Ragnar Nurkse and...

The Mexican peso crisis of December 1994 shocked politicians, analysits, and pundits. Shock was followed by panic, as investors flew the country. It took a massive bail-out package put together by the IMF and the US Treasury to generate some tranquility in the markets in mid to late 1995. From...

This paper presents a very simple model of the effects of flexible exchange rates in the transmission of business cycles. The starting point is the traditional "locomotive" effect, through exports and imports. Aside from this horizontal transmission, the intertemporal exchange rate model...

We review ten aspects of how floating exchange rates have worked in practice, contrasted with ten characteristics that the system was supposed to have in theory. We conclude that the foreign exchange market is characterized by high transactions-volume, short-term horizons, and an absence of...

The 1970's witnessed the dramatic evolution of the international monetary system from a regime of pegged exchange rates into a regime of flexible rates. This paper surveys the key issues and lessons from the experience with floating rates during the1970's. The main orientation is empirical and...

The paper updates the answer to the question: what precisely is the exchange rate regime that China has put into place since 2005, when it announced a move away from the dollar peg? Is it a basket anchor with the possibility of cumulatable daily appreciations, as was announced at the time? We...

Nominal exchange rate changes can lead to 'expenditure switching' when they change relative international prices. A traditional argument for flexible nominal exchange rates posits that when prices are sticky in producers' currencies, nominal exchange rate movements can change relative prices...

This paper continues the investigation of the surprisingly slow and weak international transmission of inflation indicated by the Mark III International Transmission Model. The Mark IV Simulation Model is presented. This is a simplified version of the Mark III Model which retains the...

This study investigates whether greater nominal exchange rate flexibility aids real exchange rate adjustment based on data from dual exchange rates in developing countries. Specifically, we analyze whether the more flexible parallel market rate produces faster real exchange rate adjustment than...

The behaviour of the exchange rate under a floating exchange rate regime for a small open economy with perfect capital mobility may appear like a managed float or even a firmer peg. We present a canonical new neo-classical synthesis open economy model where the central bank follows a strategy...

As documented in recent studies, developing countries (classified by the IMF as floaters or managed floaters) are extremely reluctant to allow for large nominal exchange rate fluctuations. This 'fear of floating' is reflected in the fact that, in spite of being subject to larger shocks,...

This paper analyzes the relationship between forward exchange rates,future spot rates and new information. A stochastic model of exchangerate determination is used to formally show how unanticipated changes in the exchange rate determinants (or "news") affect the spot rate. The empirical...

Few papers have tried to project how Chinese monetary policy will behave under flexible exchange rates. As Japan provides an important role model for China, this paper studies the role of the yen/dollar exchange rate for Japanese monetary policy after the shift of Japan from a fixed to a...

The economic emergence of a fixed exchange rate periphery in Asia has reestablished the United States as the center country in the Bretton Woods international monetary system. We argue that the normal evolution of the international monetary system involves the emergence of a periphery for which...

This paper describes the essential similarity between "modern" commercial policy, with its rent-like revenues, and capital transfers. Import barriers are shown to have consequently ambiguous effects on nominal and real exchange rates. The paper also examines some important supply-side welfare...