We assess the progress made by the profession in understanding real exchange rate behavior through a selective and critical, but nonetheless expository, review of the literature. Our reading of the literature leads us to the main conclusions that purchasing power parity might be viewed as a...

Previous studies find that the interest rate term spread predicts real U.S. economic activity. We show that this relationship breaks down for the 1990s and suggest that its earlier success was due to high and volatile inflation. We find, however, that the high-yield spread (HYS) between "junk...

We assess the progress made by the profession in understanding real exchange rate behavior through a selective and critical, but nonetheless expository, review of the literature. Our reading of the literature leads us to the main conclusions that purchasing power parity might be viewed as a...

Two main views of exchange rate determination have evolved since the early 1970s: the monetary approach to the exchange rate (in flexible-price, sticky-price, and real interest differential formulations); and the portfolio balance approach. The literature on these views is surveyed, followed by...

Recent techniques designed to draw inferences about the credibility of changes in macroeconomic policy regimes are examined. An alternative two-step approach, based on the decomposition between permanent and transitory components of a "credibility variable," is proposed. The methodology is then...

We reexamine the monetary approach to the exchange rate from several perspectives, using monthly data on the deutsche mark-U.S. dollar exchange rate. Using the Campbell-Shiller technique, we reject the restrictions imposed on the data by the forward-looking rational expectations monetary model....

This paper uses nonparametric procedures to test for a shift in the volatility of nominal and real exchange rates for members and nonmembers of the ERM. The results imply a reduction in volatility for ERM members, especially during the latter half of its operation. We also demonstrate that this...

Previous studies find that the interest rate term spread predicts real U.S. economic activity. We show that this relationship breaks down for the 1990s and suggest that its earlier success was due to high and volatile inflation. We find, however, that the high-yield spread (HYS) between "junk...