Almost all existing studies on the causes, consequences and policy implications of the economic and financial crisis faced by East Asia have provided only a cursory discussion of broad data at best, or have fallen into the trap of merely stating the weaknesses in the economies as a ‘matter...

Though there has been much general debate recently about the pros and cons of capital controls, there remains substantial confusion and uncertainty about what exactly is entailed by the term ‘restraining global capital flows’. Popular discussion around this has typically been long...

The depth and breadth of the East Asian financial crisis has added a sense of acute urgency for some concrete and credible measures by policy-makers to revitalise the Japanese economy. While steps to be taken for the long-run competitiveness and economic revitalisation of the Japanese economy...

The turmoil that has characterised the global financial markets since the 1990s, and particularly the crisis in East Asia, has generated a great deal of support for proposals to add some frictions to the wheels of international finance, as part of overall reforms to the global financial...

When analyzing the appropriate response for monetary policy during a currency crisis it is important to keep in mind two distinct channels: (a) the impact of raising interest rates on exchange rates; and (b) the direct impact of exchange rate changes on output. The first pertains to the monetary...

Lecture at RIS, New Delhi December 2005

Policy makers are particularly concerned about the extent and speed of exchange rate pass-through into domestic prices. However, in recent times there seems to be a growing degree of disconnect between exchange rate changes and domestic consumer prices in general, or, for that matter, even into...

Most standard indicators suggest that India’s reserve stock is more than adequate. The rapid stockpiling of foreign exchange reserves implies that the RBI has been leaning-against-the-wind to keep down the value of the Indian Rupee. As India has become more export-oriented it has become...

The infeasibility of a monetary union for East Asia in the near future, as well as the limitations of other forms of super fixes, appears to leave a flexible regime as the only viable policy option. This paper first deliberates on the case for and against a flexible regime. To anticipate the...

One of the more important concepts in open macroeconomics is the “equilibrium real exchange rate†(ERER). Real exchange rate misalignments are argued to have been the cause of loss of competitiveness and growth slowdowns and eventual currency crises (in the event of sustained...