It is well documented that macroeconomic fundamentals are little help in predicting changes in the nominal exchange rates compared to the predictions made by a simple random walk. Letta and Ludvigson (2001) find that fluctuations in the common long-term trend in consumption, asset wealth, and...

Before the 1997-98 crisis, the East Asian economies—except for Japan—informally pegged their currencies to the dollar. These soft pegs made them vulnerable to a depreciating yen thereby aggravating the crisis. To limit future misalignments, the IMF wants East Asian currencies to float...