This paper examines the trade-off between exchange rate stability and monetary autonomy for a target zone. Using the guilder-mark target zone in the pre-EMU period as a case study, we empirically estimate how much policy discretion the Dutch central bank still enjoyed and how much had been ceded...

Since the Asian crisis it has been recognized that exchange rate and monetary policy strategies must involve a “fairly high” element of flexibility rather than a single-minded defense of a particular rate. One way this flexibility might be introduced is by a country adopting an open economy...

We investigate official and implicit nominal anchors for six Central and Eastern European countries during 1994 to 2002. Most of these countries have moved from fixed to more flexible regimes and adopted a form of inflation targeting. Achieving their new official targets has had mixed success....

Central banks invest their foreign exchange reserves predominantly in government bonds. The global accumulation of reserves therefore affects the equilibrium in the market for government bonds of reserve currency countries. By means of a panel data analysis we examine the relationship between...