Since the collapse of the Bretton Woods system in the early 1970s, the choice of the exchange rate regime has been the subject of a lively debate in international finance. In this study, we investigate the determinants of three exchange rate regimes (fixed, flexible and intermediate). Our...

We develop a model of a small open economy with three types of nominal rigidities (domestic goods prices, imported goods prices and wages) and eight different structural shocks. We estimate the model's structural parameters using a maximum likelihood procedure and use it to compute...

I construct a micro-model to show that a currency crisis can spread from one country to another even when these countries are unrelated in terms of economic fundamentals and there is no capital linkage across countries through a common lender or an interbank market. The key to explaining...

This paper studies the implications of the presence of a large speculator like George Soros during a contagious currency crisis. The model proposes a new contagion channel and shows how a currency crisis can spread from one country to another even when these countries are totally unrelated in...

This paper analyses the impact of exchange rate regimes on real exchange rates, as defined by the relative price of nontradables to tradables in Argentina, Brazil, Chile (ABC) and Mexico from 1990 to 2002. As identified by the empirical literature, the real exchange rate is determined in the...

The research addresses three methodological questions that are central to effective exchange rate and macroeconomic management: what are the determinants and how to model the real exchange rate (RER), how to estimate its equilibrium level, and how to quantify the likely impact of misalignment on...

This paper investigates the empirical relevance of a new framework for monetary policy analysis in which the decision makers are allowed to weight differently positive and negative deviations of inflation and output from the target values. Reduced-form and structural estimates of the central...

Based on a simple open economy framework, this analysis rationalizes the existence of “fear of floatingâ€-type responses and uncovers some important implications about to role of pass-through effects and contractionary depreciations. By examining how the optimal monetary response varies...

In recent times, economists concur that economy's response to monetary policy is somewhat weaker then they were in the past. However, the cause of such change remains an open issue. One plausible reason for this change could be attributed to the financial reform processes that have brought...

This paper surveys the postwar evolution of Bank of Japan (BOJ) monetary policy. Using both qualitative and quantitative data, we describe the changes in the money supply process in response to changing institutional constraints. We focus on the transition from quantitative to qualitative...