Over the past two decades several countries have undertaken measures to open the capital account of their balance of payment as part of a broader process of financial liberalization and international economic integration. This paper reviews the exchange rate regime of emerging countries...

In July 1997, the economies of East Asia became embroiled in one of the worst financial crises of the postwar period. Yet, prior to the crisis, these economies were seen as models of economic growth experiencing sustained growth rates that exceeded those earlier thought unattainable. Why did the...

Before the 1997-1998 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...

Exchange rate movements during the global financial crisis of 2007–09 were unusual. Unlike in two previous episodes – the Asian crisis of 1997–98 and the crisis following the Russian debt default in 1998 – in 2008 many countries that were not at the centre of the crisis saw their...

The currency crises of the 1990s all exhibit a divergence of the nominal and the real exchange rate together with an increase in the negative current account. The nominal rate does not reflect inflation differences fully and the ensuing real appreciation leads to a negative current account. This...

Evolution of speculative attack models show certain progress in developing idea of the role of expectations in the crisis mechanism. Obstfeld (1996) defined expectations as fully exogenous. Morris and Shin (1998) endogenised the expectations with respect to noise leaving information significance...

We examine the consequences of a sudden increase in household debt burdens by exploiting variation in exposure to household foreign currency debt during Hungary's late-2008 currency crisis. The revaluation of debt burdens leads to higher default rates and a collapse in spending. These responses...

The global financial crisis and the dramatic slump in private capital flows associated with it has particularly affected the economies of the Baltic countries. The real gross domestic product decreased in the first half of 2009 in Latvia by 18.8 percent, in Estonia by 15.7 percent and in...

Die globale Finanzkrise und der damit verbundene dramatische Einbruch der privaten Kapitalflüsse hat die Volkswirtschaften der baltischen Länder in besonderem Maße getroffen. Das reale Bruttoinlandsprodukt ist im ersten Halbjahr 2009 in Lettland um 18,8 Prozent, in Estland um 15,7 Prozent und...

This paper studies the design of optimal monetary policy rules for emerging economies confronted to sharp capital outflows and speculative attacks. We extend Taylor type monetary policy rules by allowing the central bank to give some weight to the level of precautionary foreign reserve balances...