Bolivia has achieved noteworthy success over the past 15 years in raising incomes, reducing poverty, and maintaining macroeconomic stability by deploying commodity revenues to finance transfers, public investment, and state-led development, using an exchange rate peg as a policy anchor. However,...

Understanding the sources of inflation persistence is crucial for monetary policy. This paper provides an empirical assessment of the influence of inflation expectations' anchoring on the persistence of inflation. We construct a novel index of inflation expectations' anchoring using survey-based...

This paper studies a policy often used to defend a currency peg: raising short-term interest rates. The rationale for this policy is to stem demand for foreign reserves. Yet, this mechanism is absent from most monetary models. This paper develops a general equilibrium model with asset market...

A brief survey of the literature on speculative attacks is provided. The nature and causes of balance-of-payments crises, the implications for the behavior of the current account and the real exchange rate are discussed. Also, potential areas for future research on balance-of-payments crises are...

The paper models an adjustable peg exchange rate arrangement as a policy rule with an escape clause under which the timing and magnitudes of realignments are the outcomes of policy optimization decisions. Under the assumptions that market participants are rational, risk averse, and fully...

We study the optimal design of a disinflation plan by a planner who lacks commitment. Having announced a plan, the Central banker faces a tradeoff between surprise inflation and building reputation, defined as the private sector's belief that the Central bank is committed to the plan. Some plans...

We study the effects of a credible, gradual exchange rate based disinflation program in a two sector economy. After an initial real exchange rate depreciation, the reductions in the rate of devaluation reduce the monetary wedge generated by a cash in advance constraint, leading to a gradual...