We analyze the returns to targeting the Australian, New Zealand, and South African currencies, through Japanese yen-funded speculation - with a particular focus on the South African rand, for which the carry trade is often seen as a source of exchange rate volatility. Targeting the rand through...

We examine the empirical properties of the payoffs to two popular currency speculation strategies: the carry trade and momentum. We review three possible explanations for the apparent profitability of these strategies. The first is that speculators are being compensated for bearing risk. The...

A Tobin tax (TT) is studied by means of a portfolio model defined over the means and variances of two rates of return (domestic and foreign). When the correlation is negative, the TT is likely to decrease the speculative component of the share of portfolio invested abroad and to increase the...

The prevalent explanation of the Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM) currency crisis of September, 1992 is that myopic speculation prevailed over the “fundamentals.†Our paper explores the reasons why the Italian lira and the U.K. pound were attacked and, subsequently, forced out of the ERM....

The prime task of modelling cross-market contagion is to predict the imminence of a pestilent currency crisis. Empirical models are developed here to study the roles and channels of contagion in exchange rate volatilities, in ways which are as economically sound and econometrically simple as...

The monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) has a policy of controlling bank lending in Singapore dollars to non-residents and residents outside Singapore. One of the objectives of this MAS policy is to discourage speculation against the Singapore dollar in times of currency crisis. The present...

This paper is concerned with the ability of speculation to gener- ate a currency crisis. We consider a game-theoretic setting between a unit mass of speculators and a government that holds foreign currency reserves. We analyze conditions under which the speculators may be able to force the...

This paper identifies the ex ante factors of currency speculation based on the experience of Hong Kong’s three episodes in 1988, 1998 and 2007. The dynamic conditional correlation models are used to study the inter-temporal interactions among the Hang Seng Index, Hang Seng Index futures and...

Although an optimal exchange rate regime is dependent on country’s characteristics, intermediate regimes, especially the Managed Floating Plus (MFP) regime and Basket, Band and Crawling Peg (BBC) regime, seem to be viable options for developing countries. This work aims to analyze the issue of...

This chapter investigates the effect of the exchange regime on the likelihood of sudden stops. A panel probit analysis is conducted on the data of 43 developing countries from 1980 to 2010. The test investigates the interaction of surges and the exchange regime and their potential impact of the...