The trade-off between interest rate variability and the width of an exchange rate target zone is examined, using the regulated Brownian motion model of target zones. It is shown that for narrow exchange rate bands, and for reasonable parameter values, the interest rate differential's asymptotic...

A theory of the international trade pattern in risky assets is developed by applying the law of comparative advantage to asset trade. According to this l aw, there is a tendency for a country to import assets that have rela tively high autarky prices. It is examined how autarky prices are aff...

Devaluation expectations for the Swedish krona are estimated for the period 1985 to 1992 using daily data for exchange rates and interest rates. The 90 percent confidence intervals for these estimates obtained by the 'drift-adjustment' method suggested by Giuseppe Bertola and Lars E. O. Svensson...

We examine a central bank's endogenous choice of degree of control and degree of transparency, under both commitment and discretion. We argue that discretion is the more realistic assumption for the choice of control and that commitment is more realistic for the choice of transparency. For the...

A conservative government, in favor of a low level of public consumption, knows that it will be replaced by a government in favor of a larger level of public consumption. The authors show that the resulting level of public consumption is in between the levels the two governments would choose if...

The paper discusses the implementation of inflation-targeting across countries. It argues that the intermediate variable under an inflation target is, in effect, the inflation forecast. Such a regime is shown to confer benefits over other regimes, such as money and exchange rate targeting: in...