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Working Paper
Asset bubbles, domino effects and 'lifeboats': elements of the East Asian crisis
Credit market imperfections have been blamed for the depth and persistence of the Great Depression in the USA. Could similar mechanisms have played a role in ending the East Asian miracle? After a brief account of the nature of the recent crises, we use a model of highly levered credit-constrained firms due to Kiyotaki and Moore (1997) to explore this question. As applied to land-holding property companies, it predicts greatly amplified responses to financial shocks--like the ending of the land price bubble or the fall of the exchange rate. The initial fall in asset values is followed by the ...
Working Paper
Optimal currency basket in a world of generalized floating : an application to the nordic countries
The purpose of this paper is to derive optimal weights for a currency basket taking into consideration the objective of the policymaker. We carefully distinguish between the two terms: effective exchange rate index and currency basket, which are often used interchangeably in the literature. In general, our analysis is an extension of the work of Branson-Katseli and Lipschitz-Sundararajan and then applied to the Nordic countries. We use the policy objective of minimizing fluctuation in export production and illustrate our results using Norway, Sweden and Finland. The weights we derive create ...
Working Paper
The reaction of exchange rates and interest rates to news releases
This paper examines the response of exchange rates and interest rates--U.S. and foreign--to economic news. The news is associated with the surprise component of the monthly release of six U.S. macroeconomic variables. The results suggest that dollar exchange rates systematically react to news about real economic activity--a surprise of 100,000 on nonfarm payroll employment leads to a 0.2 percent appreciation of the exchange rate. In general, exchange rates do not react systematically to news on inflation. By contrast, U.S. interest rates respond to both types of news, although the response ...
Working Paper
The structure and properties of the FRB multicountry model.Part I: Model description and simulation results
The FRB Multicountry Model (MCM) is a linked system of five quarterly national macroeconometric models of the United States, Canada, Germany, Japan, and the United Kingdom. The MCM emphasizes international linkages, and has equations for trade in goods and services, investment income flows, and exchange rates. This paper documents the current version of the MCM. The paper describes the theoretical structure of the model, and presents the empirical estimation results. The paper also describes a series of simulations of fiscal and monetary policy scenarios and external shocks. A complete ...
Working Paper
Monetary policy independence in the ERM: was there any?
Recently proposals for introducing greater exchange rate fixity into the behavior of key exchange rates have become fashionable. One proposal, for example, suggests that a target zone arrangement for the dollar, mark and yen would represent a desirable reform of the international monetary system. The question we seek to address in this paper is how much monetary independence is likely to be conferred on a country participating in such an arrangement. Recent research for the Classical gold standard has suggested that even with a rigidly fixed exchange rate system there is still some scope for ...
Working Paper
A utility based comparison of some models of exchange rate volatility
When estimates of variances are used to make asset allocation decisions, underestimates of population variances lead to lower expected utility than equivalent overestimates: a utility based criterion is asymmetric, unlike standard criteria such as mean squared error. To illustrate how to estimate a utility based criterion, we use five bilateral weekly dollar exchange rates, 1973-1989, and the corresponding pair of Eurodeposit rates. Of homoskedastic, GARCH, autoregressive and nonparametric models for the conditional variance of each exchange rate, GARCH models tend to produce the highest ...
Working Paper
Purchasing power parity and uncovered interest rate parity: the United States 1974-1990
This paper examines the factors behind long-run movements of the dollar. Most recent work has concluded that structural exchange rate models explain only a small proportion of exchange rate movements. However, many economists still find the theory that links exchange rates and interest rates persuasive. We investigate the relationship between exchange rates, prices, and interest rates using multivariate maximum likelihood cointegration tests. In particular, we explicitly test for purchasing power parity and uncovered interest rate parity when using nominal exchange rates, and implicitly test ...
Working Paper
Was China the first domino? assessing links between China and the rest of emerging Asia.
We assess links between China and the rest of emerging Asia. Some commentators have argued that China?s apparent devaluation in 1994 may have contributed to the Asian financial crisis. We argue that the devaluation was not economically important: The more-relevant exchange rate was a floating rate that was not devalued, and high Chinese inflation has led to a very sharp real appreciation of the currency. Although in principle, export competition with China could nevertheless have placed pressure on other Asian exporters, we argue that the striking feature of the data is the common movement ...
Working Paper
U.S. monetary policy and econometric modeling: tales from the FOMC transcripts 1984-1991
This paper uses the transcripts from the FOMC meetings to characterize the interactions between policymakers and macro models in the formulation of U.S. monetary policy. We develop a taxonomy of these interactions and present two case studies. The first case focuses on the debate on the choice of monetary target and the second case focuses on the 1990/1991 recession. The analysis reveals that U.S. monetary policy relies on models for information. Models give estimates of both the outlook and the response of the economy to policy changes. Models also evolve to recognize the changing context in ...