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Competitive devaluations: a welfare-based approach
This paper studies the mechanism of international transmission of exchange rate shocks within a three-country Center-Periphery model, providing a choice-theoretic framework for the policy analysis and empirical assessment of competitive devaluations. If relative prices and terms of trade exhibit some flexibility conforming to the law of one price, a devaluation by one country is beggar-thy-neighbor relative to another country through its effects on cost-competitiveness in a third market. Yet, due to direct bilateral trade between the two countries, there is a large range of parameter values ...
Working Paper
Exchange rate overshooting and the costs of floating
Currency crises are usually associated with large nominal and real depreciations. In some countries depreciations are perceived to be very costly (?fear of floating?). In this paper we try to understand the reasons behind this fear. We first look at episodes of currency crises in the 1990s and establish that countries entering a crisis with high levels of foreign debt tend to experience large real exchange rate overshooting (devaluation in excess of the long-run equilibrium level) and large output contractions. We then develop a model of a small open economy that helps to explain this ...
Report
Paper tigers? A model of the Asian crisis
This paper develops an interpretation of the Asian meltdown focused on moral hazard as the common source of overinvestment, excessive external borrowing, and current account deficits. To the extent that foreign creditors are willing to lend to domestic agents against future bail-out revenue from the government, unprofitable projects and cash shortfalls are refinanced through external borrowing. While public deficits need not be high before a crisis, the eventual refusal of foreign creditors to refinance the country's cumulative losses forces the government to step in and guarantee the ...
Conference Paper
Exchange rate overshooting and the costs of floating
Currency crises are usually associated with large nominal and real depreciations. In some countries depreciations are perceived to be very costly (?fear of floating?). In this paper we try to understand the reasons behind this fear. We first look at episodes of currency crises in the 1990s and establish that countries entering a crisis with high levels of foreign debt tend to experience large real exchange rate overshooting (devaluation in excess of the long run equilibrium level) and large output contractions. We the develop an model of an open economy with monopolistic competition and ...