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The paper reviews the recent literature on exchange rate target zones and on speculative attacks on fixed exchange rates. The influential Krugman model of exchange rate target zones has two main results, namely that credible target zones stabilize exchange rates more than fundamentals (the `honeymoon effect') and that exchange rates depend on fundamentals according to a nonlinear `S-curve' with `smooth pasting.' Almost all the model's empirical implications have been overwhelmingly rejected. Later research has reconciled the theory with empirical results by allowing for imperfectly credible exchange rates and for intra-marginal central bank interventions. That research has also shown that non-linearities and smooth pasting are probably empirically insignificant and that a linear managed-float model is a good approximation to exchange rate target zones. The speculative attack literature has developed models built on the principles of no anticipated price discontinuities, endogenous timing of the speculative attack, and the attack occurring when a finite amount of foreign exchange reserves remain. These models have been extended to include random timing of attacks and alternative post attack regimes. Some empirical tests have been undertaken. In contrast to target zone models, speculative attack models have been influenced by empirical results only to a small extent.
ical) and to self-fulfilling currency crisis, respectively. Research stressing the former approach was pioneered by Krugman (1979) and Flood and Garber (1984). According to this line of research, the failure of governments to adopt domestic monetary and fiscal policies consistent with their stated exchange rate targets leads to a gradual diminution of reserves and eventually a stock adjustment that depletes reserves suddenly in one attack (Sachs, Tornell, and Velasco, 1996, page 47). The result is either a devaluation of the exchange rate or a switch to floating. Subsequent work of this genre has specified a number of other channels, in addition to that involving inconsistent and unsustainable monetary and fiscal policies, that can precipitate an attack: 1. Inconsistency between external and internal objectives. The stances of monetary and fiscal policies may be consistent with the authorities' exchange rate target, but domestic economic indicators (such as the unemployment rate) may be inconsistent with internal balance, resulting in pressures on the authorities to relax macroeconomic policies. Private agents, aware of this inconsistency, perceive an opportunity for profits from a currency devaluation and precipitate an attack. 2. Contagion effects. Prior to an attack on another currency (say that of country B), the market may view a country's (say, country A's) exchange rate as consistent with economic fundamentals and, thus, sustainable.
Patterns in domestic credit creation stemming from inconsistent fiscal policies have received widespread attention for aggravating speculative attacks on central bank foreign exchange reserves and contributing to the collapse of exchange rate regimes. This paper acknowledges the importance of monetary and fiscal discipline, but also emphasizes the importance of other random shocks to the domestic money market, most notably shocks from external credit supplies and relative prices. Policies of the domestic fiscal authorities are only partial catalysts for speculative attacks on a currency. Expansion of domestic credit stemming from the monetization of fiscal imbalances may be dominated by involuntary domestic credit expansions necessitated by surprise shortages in supplies of external capital. Further, the unexpected availability of external capital translates into a lower net critical reserve floor, making the depletion of central bank reserves by a speculative attack more difficult to accomplish. Also of considerable importance are relative price shocks which directly influence the probability of collapse by randomizing the demand for nominal money balances. Empirical studies of exchange rate crises that neglect these considerations will produce biased estimates of both expected collapse probabilities and anticipated post-collapse exchange rates.
The international monetary system has passed through a succession of phases characterized alternatively by the dominance of fixed and flexible exchange rates. How are these repeated shifts between fixed and flexible rate regimes to be understood? The present paper specifies and tests six hypotheses with the capacity to explain the alternating phases of fixed and flexible exchange rates into which the last century can be partitioned. The evidence provides support for a number of the hypotheses considered. In this sense it confirms that monocausal explanations are unlikely to provide an adequate account of the endogeneity of exchange rate regimes.
Using recent advances in the classification of exchange rate regimes, this paper finds no support for the popular bipolar view that countries will tend over time to move to the polar extremes of free float or rigid peg. Rather, intermediate regimes have shown remarkable durability. The analysis suggests that as economies mature, the value of exchange rate flexibility rises. For countries at a relatively early stage of financial development and integration, fixed or relatively rigid regimes appear to offer some anti-inflation credibility gain without compromising growth objectives. As countries develop economically and institutionally, there appear to be considerable benefits to more flexible regimes. For developed countries that are not in a currency union, relatively flexible exchange rate regimes appear to offer higher growth without any cost in credibility.
In the literature on speculative attacks on a fixed exchange rate, it is usually assumed that the monetary authority responsible for fixing the exchange rate reacts passively to the monetary disruption caused by the attack. This assumption is grossly at odds with actual experience where monetary-base implications of the attacks are usually sterilized. Such sterilization renders the standard monetary-approach attack model unable to provide intellectual guidance to recent attack episodes. In this paper we describe the problems with the standard model and develop a version of the portfolio-balance exchange rate model that allows the study of episodes with sterilization. Sterilized attacks may be regarded as a laboratory test of the monetary versus portfolio-balance exchange rate models. The monetary model fails the test. These issues are motivated by reference to the December 1994 collapse of the Mexican peso.
In the 1990s, currency crises in Europe, Mexico, and Asia have drawn worldwide attention to speculative attacks on government-controlled exchange rates and have prompted researchers to undertake new theoretical and empirical analysis of these events. This paper provides some perspective on this work and relates it to earlier research. It derives the optimal commitment to a fixed exchange rate and proposes a common framework for analyzing currency crises. This framework stresses the important role of speculators and recognizes that the government’s commitment to a fixed exchange rate is constrained by other policy goals. The final section finds that some crises may be particularly difficult to predict using currently popular methods.
"Drawing on new data and advances in exchange rate regimes' classification, we find that countries appear to benefit by having increasingly flexible exchange rate systems as they become richer and more financially developed. For developing countries with little exposure to international capital markets, pegs are notable for their durability and relatively low inflation. In contrast, for advanced economies, floats are distinctly more durable and also appear to be associated with higher growth. For emerging markets, our results parallel the Baxter and Stockman classic exchange regime neutrality result, though pegs are the least durable and expose countries to higher risk of crisis"--NBER website