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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.
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.
It is well known that the long-run viability of a fixed exchange rate regime imposes constraints on monetary policy. This paper shows that, in a model with forward-looking agents, short-run viability imposes a fiscal constraint. When policy change, which destroys long-run viability, also violates the fiscal constraint, collapse is instantaneous. Delayed predictable collapse requires satisfaction of the fiscal constraint.