The first known experiment with an exchange rate band took place in Austria-Hungary between 1896 and 1914. The rationale for introducing this policy rested on precisely those intuitions that the modern literature has emphasized: the band was designed to secure both exchange rate stability and...

Die Schweiz ist in den vergangenen Monaten durch die drastische Aufwertung des Schweizer Franken gegenüber dem Euro unter Druck geraten. Im September 2011 verkündete deshalb die Schweizerische Nationalbank (SNB) einen Mindestkurs des Franken zum Euro. Mit einer Untergrenze von 1,20 Franken je...

This paper investigates the intraday effects of unannounced foreign exchange intervention on bid-ask exchange rate spreads using official intraday intervention data provided by the Danish central bank. Our starting point is a simple theoretical model of the bid-ask spread which we use to...

The target zone model by Krugman (1991) assumes that foreign exchange intervention targets exchange rate levels. We argue that the fit of this model depends on the stage of development of capital markets. Foreign exchange intervention of countries with highly developed capital markets is in line...

While up to the late 1990s Japanese foreign exchange intervention was fully sterilized, Japanese monetary authorities left foreign exchange intervention unsterilized when Japan entered the liquidity trap in 1999. According to previous research on foreign exchange intervention, unsterilized...

The paper assesses the extent to which the Group of Seven (G7) has been successful in its management of major currencies since the 1970s. Using an event-study approach, the paper finds evidence that the G7 has been overall effective in moving the US dollar, yen and euro in the intended direction...

This paper deals with two related issues: the sustainability of China’s exchange rate regime and the opening up of its capital account. The exchange rate discussion deliberately passes over the issue of the “equilibrium” value of the renminbi and its alleged undervaluation – typically at...

Agriculture was the mainstay of the Nigerian economy prior to independence and immediately after. Agriculture however, has suffered persistent decline since the 1970s with the exchange rate policy being implicated in the misfortune of this sector. Earlier studies on the effect of exchange rate...

This paper presents evidence on the accuracy of press reports regarding the foreign exchange market interventions conducted by the Bank of Japan (BoJ) between January 1995 and December 1999. We find that the reports of interventions in the financial press are a relatively inaccurate indicator...