Since a series of crisis events after 2007, the discussion about the adjustment channels of current account imbalances has been revived. We discuss the effectiveness of exchange rates versus macroeconomic policies to rebalance current accounts for a set of 86 mainly emerging market economies. We...

The paper analyses the causality between the Japanese-US relative export prices and the yen-dollar exchange rate. It explains why the Japanese yen proved strong even during the economic slump of the 1990s. The paper suggests that the appreciation of the Japanese yen forced the Japanese...

In this paper, we examine the rationale for dollar and euro pegging in Russia and the CIS. We consider macroeconomic stabilization and transaction costs for international trade as rationales for pegging to the euro. Dollarization of international assets and liabilities are examined as...

Before the 1997-98 crisis, the East Asian economies—except for Japan—informally pegged their currencies to the dollar. These soft pegs made them vulnerable to a depreciating yen thereby aggravating the crisis. To limit future misalignments, the IMF wants East Asian currencies to float...

Die jüngste Weltwirtschafts- und Finanzkrise hat die Gruppen der Euro-Skeptiker und Euro-Gegner nochmals kräftig durcheinander gewirbelt. Frühere strikte Euro-Gegner wie Dänemark und Island wollen neuerdings beitreten. Polen – nach wie vor überzeugter Anhänger flexibler Wechselkurse –...

We scrutinize the role of capital flows for competitiveness in seven euro-area countries in the context of real convergence and crisis with a specific focus on Greece. The paper extends the seminal Balassa-Samuelson model to include international capital markets. Capital flows are assumed to be...

We scrutinize the role of capital flows in competitiveness in a set of seven euroarea member countries (Estonia, Greece, Latvia, Lithuania, Portugal, Slovenia, and the Slovak Republic) in the context of real convergence and crisis. A specific focus is on Greece. The paper extends the seminal...

Given low interest rates in the large industrial countries and buoyant capital inflows into the emerging markets East Asian central banks have accumulated large stocks of foreign reserves. As the resulting easing of monetary conditions has become a threat to domestic price and financial...

Currencies of countries with persistent current account surpluses and high foreign currency denominated assets such as the Swiss franc and Japanese yen are under a persistent appreciation pressure, what restricts the degree of freedom in the choice of exchange rate regime. Official announcements...

This paper explores the impact of the exchange rate regime on inflation and output in the Central and Eastern European (CEE) EU candidate countries. The panel estimations for the period between 1994 and 2002 show that de facto measures of exchange rate stability have a better explanatory power...