Exchange rates of currencies in the Exchange Rate Mechanism of the EMS are characterized by long periods of stability interrupted by periods of extreme volatility. The periods of volatility appear at times of realignments of the central parities and at times when the exchange rate is within the...

This paper examines the conventional monetary equation of exchange rate determination. Under certain exogeneity conditions, one can write the price level, at home and abroad, as the ratio of the nominal money supply to the demand for real money balances. Then, since the exchange rate is the...

This paper provides an empirical examination of the hypothesis that the forward exchange rate provides an quot;optimalquot; forecast of the future spot ex-change rate, for five currencies relative to the dollar. This hypothesis provides a convenient norm for examining the erratic behavior of...

Most studies of the efficiency of the foreign exchange market focus on a single maturity -- usually a one month exchange rate. However, one observes that forward contracts of many maturities are simultaneously traded in the foreign exchange market. The hypothesis that the foreign. exchange...

This paper presents a systematic analysis of the purchasing power parity hypothesis (PPP). This hypothesis states that the exchange rate is equal to the ratio of the domestic price level to the foreign price level. It has recently been argued that PPP performs poorly in the 1970s. This paper...

Transparency is one of the biggest innovations in central bank policy of the past quarter century. Modern central bankers believe that they should be as clear about their objectives and actions as possible. However, is greater transparency always beneficial? Recent work suggests that when...

Many advanced economies are heading into an era of fiscal stress: populations are aging and governments have made substantially more promises of old-age benefits than they have made provisions to finance. This paper models the era of fiscal stress as stemming from relentlessly growing promised...

We use a rational expectations framework to assess the implications of rising debt in an environment with a "fiscal limit." The fiscal limit is defined as the point where the government no longer has the ability to finance higher debt levels by increasing taxes, so either an adjustment to fiscal...

Farmer, Waggoner, and Zha (2009) show that a new Keynesian model with a regime-switching monetary policy rule can support multiple solutions that depend only on the fundamental shocks in the model. Their note appears to find solutions in regions of the parameter space where there should be no...

This paper estimates regime-switching rules for monetary policy and tax policy over the post-war period in the United States and imposes the estimated policy process on a calibrated dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model with nominal rigidities. Decision rules are locally unique and...