Search Results
Conference Paper
Backward-looking interest-rate rules, interest-rate smoothing, and macroeconomic instability
The existing literature on the stabilizing properties of interest-rate feedback rules has stressed the perils of linking interest rates to forecasts of future inflation. Such rules have been found to give rise to aggregate fluctuations due to self-fulfilling expectations. In response to this concern, a growing literature has focused on the stabilizing properties of interest-rate rules whereby the central bank responds to a measure of past inflation. The consensus view that has emerged is that backward-looking rules contribute to protecting the economy from embarking on expectations-driven ...
Working Paper
Optimal simple and implementable monetary and fiscal rules
This paper computes welfare-maximizing monetary and fiscal policy rules in a real business cycle model augmented with sticky prices, a demand for money, taxation, and stochastic government consumption. We consider simple feedback rules whereby the nominal interest rate is set as a function of output and inflation and taxes are set as a function of total government liabilities. We implement a second-order accurate solution to the model. We have several main findings. First, the size of the inflation coefficient in the interest rate rule plays a minor role for welfare. It matters only insofar ...
Conference Paper
Country spreads and emerging countries: who drives whom?
A number of studies have stressed the role of movements in US interest rates and country spreads in driving business cycles in emerging market economies. At the same time, country spreads have been found to respond to changes in both the US interest rate and domestic conditions in emerging markets. These intricate interrelationships leave open a number of fundamental questions: Do country spreads drive business cycles in emerging countries or vice versa, or both? Do US interest rates affect emerging countries directly or primarily through their effect on country spreads? This paper addresses ...
Working Paper
Habit formation and the comovement of prices and consumption during exchange-rate based stabilization programs
A defining stylized fact associated with exchange-rate-based (ERB) stabilization programs is that their initial phase is characterized by several years of expansion in private consumption and a gradual appreciation of the real exchange rate. In this paper, I argue that standard optimizing models are unable to account for this empirical regularity, as they predict that, except for the date of announcement of the program, an appreciation of the real exchange rate must necessarily be accompanied by a decline in consumption. I show that this price-consumption problem can be resolved by relaxing ...
Working Paper
Real exchange rate targeting and macroeconomic instability
This paper introduces a real exchange rate rule of the type analyzed by Dornbusch (1982) in an optimizing, two-sector, monetary model of a small open economy. By this rule the government increases the devaluation rate when the real exchange rate is below its long-run level and reduces it when the real exchange rate is above its long-run level. I show that the mere existence of such a rule can give room for extrinsic uncertainty to have real effects, that is, it can generate economic fluctuations due to self-fulfilling expectations. I also analyze the stabilizing role of these PPP rules when ...
Discussion Paper
The syndrome of exchange-rate-based stabilizations and the uncertain duration of currency pegs
This paper shows that some key stylized facts of exchange-rate-based stabilization plans can be explained by the uncertain duration of the plans themselves. Uncertain duration is modeled to reflect evidence showing that devaluation probabilities are higher when the plans are introduced and abandoned than in the period in between. If contingent-claims markets are incomplete, this uncertain duration distortion introduces temporary fiscal cuts with large wealth effects. Investment and employment are also distorted, and the resulting supply-side effects play a critical role. Stabilizations of ...
Working Paper
The business cycles of currency speculation: a revision of the Mundellian framework
In his seminal 1960 study on the dynamics of alternative exchange rate regimes, Robert Mundell proposed a theory of balance-of-payments crises in which speculators base their actions on the observed holdings of central bank foreign reserves. We examine the quantitative implications of this view from the perspective of an equilibrium business cycle model in which rational expectations of a devaluation are conditioned on foreign reserves. The model explains some of the empirical regularities of the business cycle associated with temporary fixed-exchange-rate regimes. In turn, these cyclical ...
Working Paper
The Tequila effect: theory and evidence from Argentina
The Tequila Effect hypothesis states that the economic crisis that affected several South American countries in 1995 was caused by an exogenous capital flight triggered by the loss of confidence of foreign investors after the collapse of the Mexican peso in December 1994. I analyze the recent Argentine experience before and after the Mexican crisis and argue that the Tequila Effect played an important role in the 1995 crisis. I model the Tequila Effect in an optimizing, small, open economy, as a situation in which agents at time 0 learn that at some random future date foreign investors will ...
Conference Paper
Stabilization policy and the costs of dollarization
Conference Paper
Incomplete cost pass-through under deep habits