Confronted with a speculative attack on its currency peg, an authority weighs the short-term benefit of giving in and fine tuning the economy against the long-term benefit of credibility-enhancing resistance. In turn, speculators with heterogeneous beliefs face strategic uncertainty that peaks...

Based on a survey of 10 central banks and a review of existing literature, this paper examines the choice between transparency versus ambiguity in central banks' foreign exchange intervention. Three case studies - Canada, Hong Kong SAR and Japan - are presented to highlight the problems facing...

Could a less conservative central bank - one that faces a more severe time inconsistency problem - be less likely to succumb to an attack on a currency peg? Traditional currency-crisis models provide a firm answer: No. We argue that the answer stems from these models' narrow focus on how a...

This paper develops a new theoretical model with an asymmetric informal one-sided exchange rate target zone, with an application to the Swiss franc following the removal of the minimum exchange rate of CHF 1.20 per euro in January 2015. We extend and generalize the standard target zone model of...

This paper highlights some of the theoretical and practical implications for monetary policy and exchange rates that derive specifically from the presence of a global general equilibrium factor embedded in neutral real policy rates in open economies. Using a standard two country DSGE model, we...

This study investigates how variation in the determinants of the renminbi's daily fixing since the August 2015 exchange rate reform maps on to variation in the co- movement of the renminbi with regional and other emerging market currencies. We first identify three post-reform periods of RMB...

In this paper we analyze the effects of financial constraints on the exchange rate through the portfolio balance channel. Our contribution is twofold: First, we construct a tractable two-period general equilibrium model in which financial constraints inhibit capital flows. Hence, departures from...

We provide a theory of the limits to monetary policy independence in open economies arising from the interaction between capital flows and domestic collateral constraints. The key feature is the existence of an "Expansionary Lower Bound" (ELB), defined as an interest rate threshold below which...

This paper shows that the Japanese foreign exchange interventions in 2003/04 seem to have lowered long-term interest rates in a wide range of countries, including Japan. It seems that this decline was triggered by the investment of the intervention proceeds in US bonds and that a global...

This paper describes the international flow of funds associated with calm and volatile global equity markets. During calm periods, portfolio investment by real money and leveraged investors in advanced countries flows into emerging markets. When central banks in the receiving countries resist...