Using newly assembled data on foreign exchange market intervention, we construct a daily index of exchange market pressure during the 1992-3 crisis in the European Monetary System, allowing us to pinpoint when and where the crisis was most severe. Our analysis focuses on a neglected factor in...

This paper defines two competing hypotheses on the working of fixed exchange rates. The quot;symmetryquot; hypothesis states that every country is concerned with the good functioning of the system, and cannot afford to deviate from world averages. Every country is just left to follow the rules...

This paper addresses the puzzle of regime-dependent volatility in foreign exchange. We extend the literature in two ways. First, our microstructural model provides a qualitatively new explanation for the puzzle. Second, we test implications of our model using Europe's recent shift to rigidly...

To assess the importance of economic interdependence and the potential gains from policy coordination in the European area, this paper analyzes the international transmission of policies and disturbances in a rational expectation dynamic general equilibrium simulation model of the work economy,...

Although recent research shows that the euro has spurred cross-border financial integration, the exact mechanisms remain unknown. We investigate the underlying channels of the euro's effect on financial integration using data on bilateral banking linkages among twenty industrial countries in the...

The paper discusses what we have learned from last year's currency crises in ERM and the Nordic countries about fixed exchange rates as a means to achieve price stability. After discussing the explanations for the crises, the paper concludes that fixed exchange rates are not a shortcut to price...

This paper examines the macroeconomic aftermath of the 1992 breakdown of the European Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM). The economic performance of six leaver' nations is compared with five stayer' nations that maintained a roughly fixed parity with the Deutsche Mark. Recent writing about...

This paper reconsiders the 1992-3 crisis in the European Monetary System in light of its emerging market successors. That episode was a predecessor of the Mexican and Asian crises in the sense that both capital movements and domestic financial fragility placed important roles. The output effects...

This paper applies a full-information technique to test for the presence of contagion across the money markets of ERM member countries. We show that whenever it is possible to estimate a model for interdependence, a test for contagion based on a full information technique is more powerful. We...

This paper develops and estimates a model of the time at which market participants expected the French franc to be devalued relative to the German deutschemark during the early years of the European Monetary System. The model assumes that the expected time of exchange rate realignment is...