Currency crises are usually associated with large real depreciations. In some countries real depreciations are perceived to be very costly("fear of floating"). In this paper we try to understand the reasons behind this fear. We first look at episodes of currency crises in the '90s and establish...

The first generation models of currency crises have often been criticized because they predict that, in the absence of very large triggering shocks, currency crises should be predictable and associated with small devaluations. This paper shows that these features of first generation models are...

This paper studies a policy often used to defend a currency peg: raising short-term interest rates. The rationale for this policy is to stem demand for foreign reserves. Yet, this mechanism is absent from most monetary models. This paper develops a general equilibrium model with asset market...