This paper considers the currency composition of sovereign debt in the context of risksharingthrough excusable defaults. It is shown that monetary credibility is not asufficient condition for borrowing in domestic currency. With real exchange rate risk,debt denominated in a borrowing country’s...

Real effective exchange rate volatility is examined for 90 countries using monthlydata from January 1990 to June 2006. Volatility decreases with openness tointernational trade and per capita GDP, and increases with inflation, particularlyunder a horizontal peg or band, and with terms-of-trade...

Previous research has suggested that pegged exchange rates are associated withlower inflation than floating rates. In which direction does the causality run?Using data from a large sample of developing countries from 1984 to 2000, weconfirm that “hard” pegs (currency boards or a shared...

A second-generation model of currency crises is combined with a standard model ofbanks as providers of insurance against liquidity risk. In a pegged exchange rateregime, after funds have been committed to the banks, news arrives about the qualityof the banks’ assets and about the exchange rate...

In currency crises, unlike in orderly devaluations, the financial markets dominateevents. It is shown that currency collapses (crises followed by depreciations) have hada much greater adverse impact in emerging markets (defined as relatively highincomedeveloping countries exposed to...