The recent Asian currency crisis was caused by large prospective fiscal deficits associated with implicit bailout guarantees to failing banking systems. Absent the political will to raise taxes or cut spending, governments must resort to seignorage revenues to pay for the bailout of the banking...

This paper explores the implications of different strategies for financing the fiscal cost of twin crises for inflation and depreciation rates. We use a first-generation type model of speculative attacks which has four key features: (i) the crisis is triggered by prospective deficits, (ii) there...

This paper addresses two questions: (i) how do governments actually pay for the fiscal costs associated with currency crises; and (ii) what are the implications of different fi­nancing methods for post-crisis rates of inflation and depreciation? We study these questions using a general...

This paper argues that the recent Southeast Asian currency crises was caused by large prospective deficits associated with implicit bailout guarantees to failing banking systems. We articulate this view using a simple dynamic general equilibrium model whose key feature is that a speculative...

High-interest-rate currencies tend to appreciate relative to low-interest-rate currencies. We argue that adverse-selection problems between participants in foreign exchange markets can account for this `forward premium puzzle.' The key feature of our model is that the adverse selection problem...

This paper explores the implications of different strategies for financng the fiscal costs of twin crises for inflation and depreciation rates. We use a first-generation type model of speculative attacks which has four key features: (i) the crisis is triggered by prospective deficits; (ii) there...

Currencies that are at a forward premium tend to depreciate. This `forward-premium puzzle' is an egregious deviation from uncovered interest parity. We document the properties of the carry trade, a currency speculation strategy that exploits this anomaly. This strategy consists of borrowing...