This study examines the role of the Chinese renminbi (RMB) as an international anchor currency. After China abandoned its tight US dollar (USD) peg in 2005, the RMB found greater popularity as a reserve currency. This change in the RMB's role reflected China's growing presence in the global...

Recent empirical evidence shows that most international prices are sticky in dollars. This paper studies the policy implications of this fact in the context of an open economy model, allowing for an arbitrary structure of asset markets, general preferences and technologies, time- or...

As of the last working day of the year 2022 (30th December 2022), the official exchange rate against the US dollar (USD) was 448, while the naira USD exchange rate at the black market traded at 748—a premium of 300. The dollar had already peaked above 800 on the black market during the year...

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...

Prior studies document the puzzle of limited retail price inflation following large exchange rate devaluations in emerging market and developing countries. This paper offers another partial solution to this puzzle: the presence of a significant parallel market. Using data from Nigeria, I find...

Specialists in international finance have long been impressed by the fragility of currency pegs. Yet Danmarks Nationalbank has been able to maintain the krone's peg to the euro since the euro came into existence in 1999, and the krone's peg to the Deutschmark and SDR for 17 years before that....

Empirical (employing the Blanchard-Perotti framework) and modeling (using a country-specific DSGE model) approaches are used to estimate fiscal multipliers by policy instrument for Bolivia, to evaluate possible adjustments in a fiscal consolidation strategy. Multipliers are also estimated using...

Adherence to the classical gold standard entailed nominal exchange rate rigidity between member countries. A failure of price levels to co-move between members would thus lead to real exchange rate misalignment, with potential trade imbalances and financial crises following. We examine inflation...

China’s exchange rate policy has been one of the most contentious economic issues in present times. The large open economy with a state-led development model has been often accused of deliberately keeping its currency undervalued, thereby conferring unfair competitive advantages to its...

We explore the parallels between Japanese currency policy after World War II and Chinese currency policy today. After two decades of pegging at 360 yen, Japan decoupled from the dollar on August 1971 and then repegged at a revalued rate of 308 yen. After stabilizing the exchange rate at this new...

The paper discusses what we have learned from last year's currency crises in ERM and the Nordic countries about fixed exchange rates as a means to achieve price stability. After discussing the explanations for the crises, the paper concludes that fixed exchange rates are not a shortcut to price...

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...

Can fixed exchange rate regimes cause output divergence among member states? We show that such divergence is a long-run equilibrium characteristic of a two-region model with fixed exchange rates, heterogeneous labor markets, and endogenous growth. Under flexible exchange rates, monetary policy...

We estimate the causal impact of countercyclical interest rates on macroeconomic outcomes in open economies. To identify countercyclical interest rates, we construct a new database of short-term interest rates, principal exports, and international commodity prices for 40 economies from 1870 to...

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...

We estimate the causal impact of countercyclical interest rates on macroeconomic outcomes in open economies. To identify countercyclical interest rates, we construct a new database of short-term interest rates, principal exports, and international commodity prices for 40 economies from 1870 to...

Can fixed exchange rate regimes cause output divergence among member states? We show that such divergence is a long-run equilibrium characteristic of a two-region model with fixed exchange rates, heterogeneous labor markets, and endogenous growth. Under flexible exchange rates, monetary policy...

Bolivia has achieved noteworthy success over the past 15 years in raising incomes, reducing poverty, and maintaining macroeconomic stability by deploying commodity revenues to finance transfers, public investment, and state-led development, using an exchange rate peg as a policy anchor. However,...

We estimate the causal impact of countercyclical interest rates on macroeconomic outcomes in open economies. To identify countercyclical interest rates, we construct a new database of short-term interest rates, principal exports, and international commodity prices for 40 economies from 1870 to...

Money is debt that circulates with no questions asked. Stablecoins are a new form of private money that circulate with many questions asked. We show how stablecoins can maintain a constant price even though they face run risk and pay no interest. Stablecoin holders are indirectly compensated for...

This paper reviews earlier studies and shows that the money demand (MD) relationship under a fixed exchange rate (ER) regime differs from that under a floating ER regime, mainly due to the limited role of monetary policy in the former regime. It then empirically demonstrates that an open-economy...

A developing country often pegs its exchange rate to a single currency, such as the U.S. dollar, even though it faces a higher inflation rate than the country to which it is pegged. As a consequence, it experiences real exchange-rate misalignments and a series of easily-anticipated devaluations....

The purpose of this paper is to determine whether a two-tier exchange rate regime is more effective than a fixed rate regime in increasing acountry's ability to pursue an independent monetary policy in the short run.The analysis compares adjustment to a monetary policy and to a devaluation in...

This paper analyzes the sustainability of fixed exchange rates by extending the Barro-Gordon framework to a fully dynamic context in which the level of a state variable (in this case debt) determines the payoffs available to the government at each point in time. The model yields the following...

This paper studies the fluctuations of foreign exchange reserves under a regime of credibly fixed exchange rates. The paper considers a variety of assumptions on the determinants of money demand and currency substitution

The combination of a fixed exchange rate and downward nominal wage rigidity creates a real rigidity. In turn, this real rigidity makes the economy prone to involuntary unemployment during external crises. This paper presents a graphical analysis of alternative policy strategies aimed at...

This paper presents an empirical analysis of speculative attacks on pegged exchange rates in 22 countries between 1967 and 1992. We define speculative attacks or crises as large movements in exchange rates, interest rates, and international reserves. We develop stylized facts concerning the...

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...

This paper addresses the issue of whether regimes of fixed exchange rates are a mechanism for shifting volatility inter- temporally. Using a panel of data covering twenty industrialized countries from 1959 through 1993, I examine the volatilities of a host of real and monetary variables....

In veiw of recent strong evidence that substantial sterilization of the monetary effects of reserve flows occurs, a modified monetary approach model is formulated in which central banks exercise no control over their domestic money supply despite their sterilization activities. This model is...