Until 2012, the Central Bank of Iran (CBI) used its policy rate to stabilise the rial's exchange rate and, given a persistent current-account surplus, had accumulated sizeable currency reserves. In 2012, however, international sanctions against Iran intensified and the value of the rial halved...

"Most intervention studies have been silent on the assumed structure of the economic system--implicitly imposing implausible assumptions--despite the fact that inference depends crucially on such issues. This paper proposes to identify the cross-effects of intervention with the level and...