The outcome of a speculative attack on the foreign exchange rate can be classified into three cases: (i) immediate depreciation of the nominal exchange rate, (ii) successful defense, or (iii) failed defense. This paper explores which of these outcomes yields the lowest cost in terms of output...

We study the interaction of fiscal and monetary policies during a currency crisis in an economy with government nominal liabilities. We show that the stock and maturity of these liabilities are key determinants of the magnitude, timing and predictability of a devaluation. Among notable features...

The paper studies an optimal switching policy between fixed and floating exchange rate regimes when the central bank dislikes losing reserves. We show that the optimal central bank intervention rule is not fully transparent in that the central bank will choose to randomize the devaluation over a...

Central banks' international reserve holdings have increased significantly in the recent past. While traditional models fail to explain this accumulation of reserves, the more recent literature argues that reserves are used as a lifejacket against currency crises. However, research so far has...

On 16th November 2009, SUERF, CEPS and the Belgian Financial Forum coorganized a conference "Crisis management at cross-roads" in Brussels. All papers in the present volume are based on contributions at the conference and the SUERF Annual Lecture which followed the event.

In currency exchange markets, there is a conflict between individual decisions and the socially optimal solution. Whereas agents have a coordination motive to take the same position, at the social level effective market coordination per se is not socially valuable, and the central bank aims at...

We study a model in which policy aims at aggregate price stability. A fiscal imbalance materializes that, if uncorrected, must cause inflation, but the imbalance may get corrected in the future with some probability. By maintaining price stability in the near term, monetary policy can buy time...

We show how economic agents' limited attention can account for the time-varying link between exchange rates and economic fundamentals. We demonstrate that the higher is the attention for a certain fundamental, the higher is its predictive power in forecasting future currency movements. We proxy...

It is well known that the long-run viability of a fixed exchange rate regime imposes constraints on monetary policy. This paper shows that, in a model with forward-looking agents, short-run viability imposes a fiscal constraint. When policy change, which destroys long-run viability, also...