Exchange-rate based stabilizations, while useful in accelerating the disinflation process, typically lead to overvalued exchange rates and large current account deficits. These factors, in turn, make it difficult to sustain exchange rate pegs, placing heaving demands upon monetary policy to...

Since Mexico's devaluation of the peso in 1994, some observers have called for policies designed to keep the real exchange rate highly competitive in order to promote exports and output growth. However, over the past few decades, devaluations of the real exchange rate have been associated nearly...

This paper assesses some of the explanations that have been put forward for the global pattern of current account imbalances that has emerged in recent years: in particular, the large U.S. current account deficit and the large surpluses of the Asian developing economies. Based on the approach...

By exploiting the information in a panel data set, this paper is able to construct more powerful tests of various hypotheses on the determinants of real exchange rates than would be possible with single-country time-series data. Focusing on annual data for 20 industrial countries from 1973...

The objectives of this paper are to determine the extent to which various factors contributed to the current recession in Japan and to assess whether the recent behavior of the Japanese economy differs from that in previous recessions. Toward that end, we develop a small, structural...

According to conventional models, flexible exchange rates play an equilibrating role in open economies, depreciating in response to adverse shocks, boosting net exports, and stimulating aggregate demand. However, critics argue that, at least in developing countries, devaluations are more...

This paper assesses the empirical merits of PcGets and Autometrics--two recent algorithms for computer-automated model selection--using them to improve upon Kamin and Ericsson's (1993) model of Argentine broad money demand. The selected model is an economically sensible and statistically...

Argentina became highly "dollarized" during its hyperinflations of 1989 and early 1990. Although inflation has returned to very low rates, a high degree of dollarization has persisted during the early 1990s, counter to what the currency substitution hypothesis predicts. This paper provides new...

This paper addresses three questions about the prospects for the U.S. current account deficit. Is it sustainable in the long term? If not, how long will it take for measures of external debt and debt service to reach levels that could prompt some pullback by global investors? And if and when...

This paper describes research comparing the response of inflation to changes in exchange rate competitiveness in various regions of the world. The paper first presents evidence that an empirical relationship between the rate of inflation and the level of the real exchange rate, which was...