The majority of households across emerging market economies are excluded from the financial markets and cannot smooth consumption. I analyze the implications of this for optimal monetary policy and the corresponding choice of domestic versus external nominal anchor in a small open economy...

Under fixed exchange rates, fiscal policy is an effective tool. According to classical views because it impacts the real exchange rate, according to Keynesian views because it impacts output. Both views have merit because the effects of government spending are asymmetric. A spending cut lowers...

The transmission of correlated economic disturbances is analyzed in a three-country world, where two countries have no macroeconomic impact on a third country but are large enough to influence each other under a system of mixed exchange rates-a system that combines both fixed and flexible...

Central banks with an exchange rate objective set the interest rate in response to what they call "pressure." Instead, existing interest rate rules rely on the exchange rate minus its target. To stay closer to actual policy, we introduce a rule that uses exchange market pressure (EMP), the...