IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ags/ucbewp/233439.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Destabilizing Effects of Exchange-Rate Escape Clauses

Author

Listed:
  • Obstfeld, Maurice

Abstract

This paper studies policy rules with escape clauses, analyzing as an example fixed exchange rate systems that allow member countries the freedom to realign in periods of stress. While well-designed escape-clause rules can raise society's welfare in principle, limited credibility makes it difficult to implement such rules in practice. An EMS-type institution that imposes political costs on policymakers who realign may raise welfare, but can also produce equilibria far inferior to an irrevocably fixed exchange rate. Switches between multiple equilibria may have the character of sudden speculative attacks.

Suggested Citation

  • Obstfeld, Maurice, 1996. "Destabilizing Effects of Exchange-Rate Escape Clauses," Center for International and Development Economics Research (CIDER) Working Papers 233439, University of California-Berkeley, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:ags:ucbewp:233439
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.233439
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/233439/files/cal-cider-c096-075.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.22004/ag.econ.233439?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Stanley Fischer, 1995. "The Unending Search for Monetary Salvation," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 1995, Volume 10, pages 275-298, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Kenneth Rogoff, 1985. "The Optimal Degree of Commitment to an Intermediate Monetary Target," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 100(4), pages 1169-1189.
    3. Horn, Henrik & Persson, Torsten, 1988. "Exchange rate policy, wage formation and credibility," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 32(8), pages 1621-1636, October.
    4. Lohmann, Susanne, 1992. "Optimal Commitment in Monetary Policy: Credibility versus Flexibility," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 82(1), pages 273-286, March.
    5. Barro, Robert J & Gordon, David B, 1983. "A Positive Theory of Monetary Policy in a Natural Rate Model," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 91(4), pages 589-610, August.
    6. Susanne Lohmann, 1990. "Monetary Policy Strategies: A Correction: Comment on Flood and Isard," IMF Staff Papers, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 37(2), pages 440-445, June.
    7. Walsh, Carl E, 1995. "Is New Zealand's Reserve Bank Act of 1989 an Optimal Central Bank Contract?," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 27(4), pages 1179-1191, November.
    8. Obstfeld, Maurice, 1986. "Rational and Self-fulfilling Balance-of-Payments Crises," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 76(1), pages 72-81, March.
    9. Maurice Obstfeld & Kenneth S. Rogoff, 1996. "Foundations of International Macroeconomics," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262150476, April.
    10. Maurice Obstfeld, 1985. "Floating Exchange Rates: Experience and Prospects," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 16(2), pages 369-464.
    11. de Kock, Gabriel & Grilli, Vittorio, 1993. "Fiscal Policies and the Choice of Exchange Rate Regime," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 103(417), pages 347-358, March.
    12. Robert P. Flood & Peter Isard, 1990. "Monetary Policy Strategies: A Correction: Reply to Lohmann," IMF Staff Papers, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 37(2), pages 446-448, June.
    13. Calvo, Guillermo A, 1988. "Servicing the Public Debt: The Role of Expectations," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 78(4), pages 647-661, September.
    14. Lewis, Karen K., 1989. "On occasional monetary policy coordinations that fix the exchange rate," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 26(1-2), pages 139-155, February.
    15. Robert P. Flood & Peter Isard, 1989. "Monetary Policy Strategies," IMF Staff Papers, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 36(3), pages 612-632, September.
    16. Alesina, Alberto & Tabellini, Guido, 1988. "Credibility and politics," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 32(2-3), pages 542-550, March.
    17. Maurice Obstfeld, 1994. "The Logic of Currency Crises," NBER Working Papers 4640, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    18. Persson, Torsten & Tabellini, Guido, 1993. "Designing institutions for monetary stability," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(1), pages 53-84, December.
    19. Walsh, Carl E, 1995. "Optimal Contracts for Central Bankers," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 85(1), pages 150-167, March.
    20. Kydland, Finn E & Prescott, Edward C, 1977. "Rules Rather Than Discretion: The Inconsistency of Optimal Plans," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 85(3), pages 473-491, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Piersanti, Giovanni, 2012. "The Macroeconomic Theory of Exchange Rate Crises," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199653126.
    2. Persson, Torsten & Tabellini, Guido, 1999. "Political economics and macroeconomic policy," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & M. Woodford (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 22, pages 1397-1482, Elsevier.
    3. Richard T. Freeman & Jonathan L. Willis, 1995. "Targeting inflation in the 1990s: recent challenges," International Finance Discussion Papers 525, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    4. Svensson, Lars E O, 1997. "Optimal Inflation Targets, "Conservative" Central Banks, and Linear Inflation Contracts," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 87(1), pages 98-114, March.
    5. Richard Mash, 2000. "The Time Inconsistency of Monetary Policy with Inflation Persistence," Economics Series Working Papers 15, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    6. Huiping Yuan & Stephen M. Miller & Langnan Chen, 2011. "The Optimality And Controllability Of Monetary Policy Through Delegation With Consistent Targets," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 58(1), pages 82-106, February.
    7. Franz R. Hahn & Peter Mooslechner, 1999. "Zur Fundierung des Designs des Europäischen Zentralbanksystems," WIFO Monatsberichte (monthly reports), WIFO, vol. 72(1), pages 49-60, January.
    8. Beetsma, Roel M W J & Jensen, Henrik, 1998. "Inflation Targets and Contracts with Uncertain Central Banker Preferences," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 30(3), pages 384-403, August.
    9. Maurice Obstfeld & Kenneth Rogoff, 1995. "The Mirage of Fixed Exchange Rates," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 9(4), pages 73-96, Fall.
    10. Huiping Yuan & Stephen M. Miller, 2006. "The Making of Optimal and Consistent Policy: An Implementation Theory Framework for Monetary Policy," Working papers 2006-06, University of Connecticut, Department of Economics, revised Jan 2009.
    11. Andres Velasco, 1996. "When Are Fixed Exchange Rates Really Fixed?," NBER Working Papers 5842, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Ammer, John & Freeman, Richard T., 1995. "Inflation targeting in the 1990s: The experiences of New Zealand, Canada, and the United Kingdom," Journal of Economics and Business, Elsevier, vol. 47(2), pages 165-192, May.
    13. McCallum, Bennett T., 1997. "Crucial issues concerning central bank independence," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(1), pages 99-112, June.
    14. McCallum, Bennett T, 1995. "Two Fallacies Concerning Central-Bank Independence," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 85(2), pages 207-211, May.
    15. Kenneth Scheve, 2003. "Public demand for low inflation," Bank of England working papers 172, Bank of England.
    16. repec:bla:jecsur:v:14:y:2000:i:5:p:527-61 is not listed on IDEAS
    17. D. Masciandaro, 2019. "What Bird Is That? Central Banking And Monetary Policy In The Last Forty Years," BAFFI CAREFIN Working Papers 19127, BAFFI CAREFIN, Centre for Applied Research on International Markets Banking Finance and Regulation, Universita' Bocconi, Milano, Italy.
    18. Velasco, Andres, 1996. "Fixed exchange rates: Credibility, flexibility and multiplicity," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 40(3-5), pages 1023-1035, April.
    19. Singleton,John, 2010. "Central Banking in the Twentieth Century," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521899093, September.
    20. Velasco, Andres, 1997. "When are fixed exchange rates really fixed?," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(1), pages 5-25, October.
    21. Hayo, Bernd & Hefeker, Carsten, 2002. "Reconsidering central bank independence," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 18(4), pages 653-674, November.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Financial Economics;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ags:ucbewp:233439. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: AgEcon Search (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/debrkus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.