We develop a new set of indexes of exchange rate stability, monetary policy independence, and financial market openness as the metrics for the trilemma hypothesis. In our exploration, we take a different and more nuanced approach than the previous indexes developed by Aizenman, Chinn, and Ito...

When the Argentine economy collapsed in the final days of December 2001, in fact, this did not come too much as a surprise. The country had entered its fourth consecutive year of recession and skepticism about the sustainability of its economic model was widespread. However, the magnitude of the...

The authors develop a new set of indexes of exchange rate stability, monetary policy independence, and financial market openness as the metrics for the trilemma hypothesis. In their exploration, they take a different and more nuanced approach than the previous indexes developed by Aizenman,...

We outline new metrics for measuring the trilemma aspects: exchange rate flexibility, monetary independence, and capital account openness, taking into account recent substantial international reserve accumulation. Since 1990, the trilemma variables in emerging markets have converged towards...

Neoclassical economic theory views current account imbalances as the result of (individual) decisions to save more than to invest domestically, in line with the loan-able funds doctrine. Monetary analysis in the Keynesian tradition rejects such approaches and emphasizes that a country's net...

China's exchange rate regime has undergone gradual reform since the move away from a fixed exchange rate in 2005. The renminbi has become more flexible over time but is still carefully managed, and depth and liquidity in the onshore FX market is relatively low compared to other countries with de...

This paper presents a theoretical framework for policy making based on the “impossible trinity” or the “trilemma” hypothesis. A simple optimization model shows that placing more weight in terms of preference for each of the three open macroeconomic policies — exchange rate stability,...

A central bank may decide to conduct foreign exchange interventions when it concludes that the exchange rate level without such interventions would be insufficiently strong. A by-product of such interventions will then be a build-up of official foreign exchange (FX) reserves. A case in point is...

This paper extends our previous paper (Aizenman, Chinn, and Ito 2008) and explores some of the unexplored questions. First, we examine the channels through which the trilemma policy configurations affect output volatility. Secondly, we investigate how trilemma policy configurations affect the...

We analyze the profitability of FX swaps used by the central bank of Brazil to shed light on the rationale for FX intervention. We find that swaps are profitable in expectation, suggesting that FX intervention is used to stabilize the exchange rate in the face of temporary excessive movements...