Using monthly data for four selected emerging economies, sterilised central bank foreign exchange intervention is found to have little systematic influence on the near-term nominal exchange rate expectations in the direction intended by the central banks. In other words, central bank dollar...

Foreign exchange intervention has been actively used as a policy tool in many economies in Asia and elsewhere. In this paper, we examine two intervention rules (leaning against exchange rate misalignment and leaning against the wind), utilised with varying degrees of transparency, based on a...

The conventional view is that microeconomic reforms after the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis have greatly strengthened banking systems in Asia. Banks have become better capitalised, external exposures have been reduced and credit risk has been managed more effectively. But this conventional view...

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...

In this paper we examine how monetary policy should respond to nominal exchange rates in a New Keynesian open economy model that allows for a non-trivial role for sterilised intervention. The paper develops the argument against the backdrop of the evolving policy-making environment of Asian...

China’s emergence as a major player in world trade is well known, but its rising role in global finance is perhaps underappreciated. China is the second largest creditor in the world today, with a net creditor position of exceeding 30% of GDP in 2007. In this paper, we test the importance of...

This paper uses an open economy DSGE model with a commodity sector and nominal and real rigidities to ask what factors account for current account developments in two small commodity exporting countries. We estimate the model, using Bayesian techniques, on Chilean and on New Zealand data, and...

Global current account imbalances have been at the forefront of policy debates over the past few years. Many observers have recently singled them out as a key factor contributing to the global financial crisis. Current account surpluses in several emerging market economies are said to have...

In analysing the performance of the international monetary and financial system (IMFS), too much attention has been paid to the current account and far too little to the capital account. This is true of both formal analytical models and historical narratives. This approach may be reasonable when...

We analyse global and euro area imbalances by focusing on China and Germany as large surplus and creditor countries. In the 2000s, domestic reforms in both countries expanded the effective labour force, restrained wages, shifted income towards profits and increased corporate saving. As a result,...