This paper explores issues in emerging market countries to make inflation targeting work for them. It starts by outlining why emerging market economies are so different from advanced economies and then discuss why developing strong fiscal, financial and monetary institutions is so critical to...

This paper uses currency option data from the BMF, the Commodities and Futures exchange in Sao Paulo, Brazil, to investigate market expectations on the Brazilian Real-U.S. dollar exchange rate from October 1994 through July 1997. Using options data, we derive implied probability density...

This paper deals with the relationship between inflation targeting and exchange rates. I address three specific issues: first, I analyze the effectiveness of nominal exchange rates as shock absorbers in countries with inflation targeting. This issue is closely related to the magnitude of the...

This paper reviews recent developments in the theoretical and empirical analysis of balance-of-payments crises. A simple analytical model highlighting the process leading to such crises is first developed. The basic framework is then extended to deal with a variety of issues, such as:...

This paper develops a view of exchange rate policy as a trade-off between the desire to smooth fluctuations in real exchange rates so as to reduce distortions in consumption allocations, and the need to allow flexibility in the nominal exchange rate so as to facilitate terms of trade adjustment....

Brazil, Mexico and a few other Latin American republics enjoyed faster industrialization after 1870 than did the rest of Latin America and even faster than the rest of the poor periphery (except East Asia). How much of this economic performance was due to more accommodating institutions and...

This paper examines the degree to which the learning by doing externality [LBD] calls for an undervalued exchange rate, a policy suggested by recent empirical studies which concluded that mildly undervalued real exchange rate may enhance growth. We obtain mixed results. For an economy where LBD...

Over the past decade, policymakers in many emerging market economies have opted to limit fluctuations of the value of their domestic currencies relative to the U.S. dollar. A simple interest-parity relationship is used to identify the potential sources of upward pressure on the value of a...

This study grounds the establishment of EMU and the euro in the context of the history of international monetary cooperation and of monetary unions, above all in the U.S., Germany and Italy. The purpose of national monetary unions was to reduce transactions costs of multiple currencies and...

In this paper, we analyze several proposals for reducing the volatility and/or misalignment of key-currency exchange rates. The proposals examined are a system of target zones, the imposition of controls or taxes on international capital flows, and a strengthening of international coordination...