IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ces/ceswps/_2420.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Speculative Attacks: A Laboratory Study in Continuous Time

Author

Listed:
  • Yin-Wong Cheung
  • Daniel Friedman

Abstract

We examine speculative attacks in a controlled laboratory environment featuring continuous time, size asymmetries, and varying amounts of public information. Attacks succeeded in 233 of 344 possible cases. When speculators have symmetric size and access to information: (a) weaker fundamentals increase the likelihood of successful speculative attacks and hasten their onset, and (b) contrary to some theory, success is enhanced by public access to information about either the net speculative position or the fundamentals. The presence of a larger speculator further enhances success, and experience with large speculators increases small speculators’ response to the public information. However, giving the large speculator increased size or better information does not significantly strengthen his impact.

Suggested Citation

  • Yin-Wong Cheung & Daniel Friedman, 2008. "Speculative Attacks: A Laboratory Study in Continuous Time," CESifo Working Paper Series 2420, CESifo.
    • Handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_2420
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cesifo.org/DocDL/cesifo1_wp2420.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Camille Cornand, 2006. "Speculative Attacks and Informational Structure: an Experimental Study," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 14(5), pages 797-817, November.
    2. Christina Bannier, 2003. "The Role of Information Disparity in the 1994/95 Mexican Peso," International Finance 0310001, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Heinemann, Frank & Illing, Gerhard, 2002. "Speculative attacks: unique equilibrium and transparency," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 58(2), pages 429-450, December.
    4. Dilip Abreu & Markus K. Brunnermeier, 2003. "Bubbles and Crashes," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 71(1), pages 173-204, January.
    5. Celine Rochon, 2006. "Devaluation without common knowledge," OFRC Working Papers Series 2006fe03, Oxford Financial Research Centre.
    6. Morris, Stephen & Shin, Hyun Song, 1998. "Unique Equilibrium in a Model of Self-Fulfilling Currency Attacks," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 88(3), pages 587-597, June.
    7. Shang-Jin Wei & Jungshik Kim, 1997. "The Big Players in the Foreign Exchange Market: Do They Trade on Information or Noise?," NBER Working Papers 6256, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Razin, Assaf & Sadka, Efraim, 1993. "International migration and international trade," Handbook of Population and Family Economics, in: M. R. Rosenzweig & Stark, O. (ed.), Handbook of Population and Family Economics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 15, pages 851-887, Elsevier.
    9. , & ,, 2008. "Caller Number Five and related timing games," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 3(2), June.
    10. Obstfeld, Maurice, 1998. "EMU: Ready, or Not?," Center for International and Development Economics Research, Working Paper Series qt8qn3v8j3, Center for International and Development Economics Research, Institute for Business and Economic Research, UC Berkeley.
    11. Yin-Wong Cheung & Menzie D. Chinn & Ian W. Marsh, 2004. "How do UK-based foreign exchange dealers think their market operates?," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 9(4), pages 289-306.
    12. Giancarlo Corsetti & Amil Dasgupta & Stephen Morris & Hyun Song Shin, 2004. "Does One Soros Make a Difference? A Theory of Currency Crises with Large and Small Traders," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 71(1), pages 87-113.
    13. Carlsson, Hans & van Damme, Eric, 1993. "Global Games and Equilibrium Selection," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 61(5), pages 989-1018, September.
    14. Costain James S, 2007. "A Herding Perspective on Global Games and Multiplicity," The B.E. Journal of Theoretical Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 7(1), pages 1-55, June.
    15. Iván Werning & George-Marios Angeletos, 2006. "Crises and Prices: Information Aggregation, Multiplicity, and Volatility," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(5), pages 1720-1736, December.
    16. Dooley, Michael P, 2000. "A Model of Crises in Emerging Markets," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 110(460), pages 256-272, January.
    17. Allan Drazen & Paul R. Masson, 1994. "Credibility of Policies Versus Credibility of Policymakers," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 109(3), pages 735-754.
    18. Dale W. Henderson & Stephen W. Salant, 1976. "Market anticipations, government policy, and the price of gold," International Finance Discussion Papers 81, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    19. Guimaraes, Bernardo, 2006. "Dynamics of currency crises with asset market frictions," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(1), pages 141-158, January.
    20. Flood, Robert & Marion, Nancy, 1999. "Perspectives on the Recent Currency Crisis Literature," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 4(1), pages 1-26, January.
    21. Corsetti, Giancarlo & Pesenti, Paolo & Roubini, Nouriel, 1999. "Paper tigers?: A model of the Asian crisis," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 43(7), pages 1211-1236, June.
    22. George-Marios Angeletos & Christian Hellwig & Alessandro Pavan, 2007. "Dynamic Global Games of Regime Change: Learning, Multiplicity, and the Timing of Attacks," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 75(3), pages 711-756, May.
    23. Roberto Chang & Andrés Velasco, 2000. "Liquidity Crises in Emerging Markets: Theory and Policy," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 1999, Volume 14, pages 11-78, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    24. Paul Krugman, 1999. "Balance Sheets, the Transfer Problem, and Financial Crises," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 6(4), pages 459-472, November.
    25. Christophe Chamley, 2003. "Dynamic Speculative Attacks," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(3), pages 603-621, June.
    26. Celine Rochon, 2006. "Devaluation without common knowledge," Economics Series Working Papers 2006-FE-03, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    27. Brunnermeier, Markus K. & Morgan, John, 2010. "Clock games: Theory and experiments," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 68(2), pages 532-550, March.
    28. Jean-Pierre Allegret & Camille Cornand, 2006. "The pros and cons of higher transparency: the case of speculative attacks," Recherches économiques de Louvain, De Boeck Université, vol. 72(3), pages 215-246.
    29. Bannier, Christina E., 2005. "Big elephants in small ponds: Do large traders make financial markets more aggressive?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(8), pages 1517-1531, November.
    30. Krugman, Paul, 1979. "A Model of Balance-of-Payments Crises," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 11(3), pages 311-325, August.
    31. Cheung, Yin-Wong & Chinn, Menzie David, 2001. "Currency traders and exchange rate dynamics: a survey of the US market," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 20(4), pages 439-471, August.
    32. Flood, Robert P. & Garber, Peter M., 1984. "Collapsing exchange-rate regimes : Some linear examples," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(1-2), pages 1-13, August.
    33. Mrs. Anne C Jansen & Mr. Donald J Mathieson & Mr. Barry J. Eichengreen & Ms. Laura E. Kodres & Mr. Bankim Chadha & Mr. Sunil Sharma, 1998. "Hedge Funds and Financial Market Dynamics," IMF Occasional Papers 1998/009, International Monetary Fund.
    34. Salant, Stephen W & Henderson, Dale W, 1978. "Market Anticipations of Government Policies and the Price of Gold," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 86(4), pages 627-648, August.
    35. Christina E. Bannier & Frank Heinemann, 2005. "Optimal Transparency and Risk-Taking to Avoid Currency Crises," Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics (JITE), Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 161(3), pages 374-391, September.
    36. Frank Heinemann & Rosemarie Nagel & Peter Ockenfels, 2004. "The Theory of Global Games on Test: Experimental Analysis of Coordination Games with Public and Private Information," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 72(5), pages 1583-1599, September.
    37. Rochon, Celine, 2006. "Devaluation without common knowledge," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(2), pages 470-489, December.
    38. Cheung, Yin-Wong & Wong, Clement Yuk-Pang, 2000. "A survey of market practitioners' views on exchange rate dynamics," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(2), pages 401-419, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Shurchkov, Olga, 2016. "Public announcements and coordination in dynamic global games: Experimental evidence," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 20-30.
    2. Bosch-Rosa, Ciril, 2018. "That's how we roll: An experiment on rollover risk," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 145(C), pages 495-510.
    3. Tasneem, Dina & Engle-Warnick, Jim & Benchekroun, Hassan, 2017. "An experimental study of a common property renewable resource game in continuous time," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 140(C), pages 91-119.
    4. Farshid Pourshahabi & Nazar Dahmardeh, 2015. "Economic Sanctions, Speculative Attacks and Currency Crisis," Asian Economic and Financial Review, Asian Economic and Social Society, vol. 5(2), pages 340-355, February.
    5. von Hagen, Jürgen & Kube, Sebastian & Selten, Reinhard & Pope, Robin, 2006. "Experimental Evidence on the Benefits of Eliminating Exchange Rate Uncertainties and Why Expected Utility Theory causes Economists to Miss Them," Bonn Econ Discussion Papers 28/2006, University of Bonn, Bonn Graduate School of Economics (BGSE).
    6. Taketa, Kenshi & Suzuki-Löffelholz, Kumi & Arikawa, Yasuhiro, 2009. "Experimental analysis on the role of a large speculator in currency crises," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 72(1), pages 602-617, October.
    7. John Duffy, 2009. "Equilibrium Selection in Static and Dynamic Entry Games," Working Paper 376, Department of Economics, University of Pittsburgh, revised Dec 2011.
    8. Olga Shurchkov, 2013. "Coordination and learning in dynamic global games: experimental evidence," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 16(3), pages 313-334, September.
    9. Jacopo Magnani & David Munro, 2020. "Dynamic runs and circuit breakers: an experiment," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 23(1), pages 127-153, March.
    10. Schotter, Andrew & Yorulmazer, Tanju, 2009. "On the dynamics and severity of bank runs: An experimental study," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 18(2), pages 217-241, April.
    11. Makoto Nirei & Theodoros Stamatiou & Vladyslav Sushko, 2012. "Stochastic Herding in Financial Markets Evidence from Institutional Investor Equity Portfolios," BIS Working Papers 371, Bank for International Settlements.
    12. repec:hum:wpaper:sfb649dp2014-048 is not listed 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. Gara Minguez-Afonso, 2007. "Imperfect Common Knowledge in First-Generation Models of Currency Crises," International Journal of Central Banking, International Journal of Central Banking, vol. 3(1), pages 81-112, March.
    3. Giancarlo Marini & Giovanni Piersanti, 2012. "Models of Speculative Attacks and Crashes in International Capital Markets," CEIS Research Paper 245, Tor Vergata University, CEIS, revised 24 Jul 2012.
    4. Broner, Fernando A., 2008. "Discrete devaluations and multiple equilibria in a first generation model of currency crises," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(3), pages 592-605, April.
    5. Angeletos, G.-M. & Lian, C., 2016. "Incomplete Information in Macroeconomics," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & Harald Uhlig (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 1065-1240, Elsevier.
    6. Li, Mei & Milne, Frank, 2014. "The role of a large trader in a dynamic currency attack model," Journal of Financial Intermediation, Elsevier, vol. 23(4), pages 590-620.
    7. Mei Li & Frank Milne, 2007. "The Role Of Large Players In A Dynamic Currency Attack Game," Working Paper 1148, Economics Department, Queen's University.
    8. Tijmen R. Daniels & Henk Jager & Franc Klaassen, 2008. "Defending against Speculative Attacks," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 08-090/2, Tinbergen Institute, revised 06 Apr 2009.
    9. Ahnert, Toni & Bertsch, Christoph, 2013. "A wake-up call: information contagion and strategic uncertainty," Working Paper Series 282, Sveriges Riksbank (Central Bank of Sweden), revised 01 Mar 2014.
    10. repec:hum:wpaper:sfb649dp2009-011 is not listed on IDEAS
    11. Daniëls, Tijmen R. & Jager, Henk & Klaassen, Franc, 2011. "Currency crises with the threat of an interest rate defence," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 85(1), pages 14-24, September.
    12. Guimaraes, Bernardo, 2008. "Vulnerability of currency pegs: evidence from Brazil," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 4909, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    13. Mei Li & Frank Milne, 2010. "A Large Trader in Bubbles and Crashes: an Application to Currency Attacks," Working Papers 1004, University of Guelph, Department of Economics and Finance.
    14. Stijn Claessens & M. Ayhan Kose, 2013. "Financial Crises: Explanations, Types and Implications," CAMA Working Papers 2013-06, Centre for Applied Macroeconomic Analysis, Crawford School of Public Policy, The Australian National University.
    15. Meixing Dai, 2009. "Public debt and currency crisis: how central bank opacity can make things bad?," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 29(1), pages 190-198.
    16. Kováč, Eugen & Steiner, Jakub, 2013. "Reversibility in dynamic coordination problems," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 77(1), pages 298-320.
    17. Toni Ahnert & Christoph Bertsch, 2022. "A Wake-Up Call Theory of Contagion [Asymmetric business cycles: theory and time-series evidence]," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 26(4), pages 829-854.
    18. Junichi Fujimoto, 2014. "Speculative attacks with multiple targets," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 57(1), pages 89-132, September.
    19. Goldstein, Itay & Razin, Assaf, 2015. "Three Branches of Theories of Financial Crises," Foundations and Trends(R) in Finance, now publishers, vol. 10(2), pages 113-180, 30.
    20. Bjönnes, Geir H. & Holden, Steinar & Rime, Dagfinn & Solheim, Haakon O.Aa., 2005. "'Large' vs. 'Small' Players: A Closer Look at the Dynamics of Speculative Attacks," SIFR Research Report Series 38, Institute for Financial Research.
    21. Guimaraes, Bernardo & Morris, Stephen, 2007. "Risk and wealth in a model of self-fulfilling currency attacks," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(8), pages 2205-2230, November.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    currency crisis; speculative attack; laboratory experiment; coordination game; pre-emption; large player;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C73 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Game Theory and Bargaining Theory - - - Stochastic and Dynamic Games; Evolutionary Games
    • C92 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Design of Experiments - - - Laboratory, Group Behavior
    • F30 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - General

    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:ces:ceswps:_2420. 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: Klaus Wohlrabe (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cesifde.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.