IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/imf/imfwpa/1998-154.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Are Currency Crises Predictable? A Test

Author

Listed:
  • Ms. Catherine A Pattillo
  • Mr. Andrew Berg

Abstract

This paper evaluates three models for predicting currency crises that were proposed before 1997. The idea is to answer the question: if we had been using these models in late 1996, how well armed would we have been to predict the Asian crisis? The results are mixed but somewhat encouraging. One model, and our modifications to it, provide useful forecasts, at least compared with a naive benchmark. The head-to-head comparison also sheds light on the economics of currency crises, the nature of the Asian crisis, and issues in the empirical modeling of currency crises.

Suggested Citation

  • Ms. Catherine A Pattillo & Mr. Andrew Berg, 1998. "Are Currency Crises Predictable? A Test," IMF Working Papers 1998/154, International Monetary Fund.
    • Handle: RePEc:imf:imfwpa:1998/154
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/cat/longres.aspx?sk=2797
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Graciela Kaminsky & Saul Lizondo & Carmen M. Reinhart, 1998. "Leading Indicators of Currency Crises," IMF Staff Papers, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 45(1), pages 1-48, March.
    2. Kaminsky, Graciela L & Reinhart, Carmen M, 1998. "Financial Crises in Asia and Latin America: Then and Now," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 88(2), pages 444-448, May.
    3. Carmen M. Reinhart & Graciela L. Kaminsky, 1999. "The Twin Crises: The Causes of Banking and Balance-of-Payments Problems," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(3), pages 473-500, June.
    4. Gian Maria Milesi Ferretti & Assaf Razin, 2000. "Current Account Reversals and Currency Crises: Empirical Regularities," NBER Chapters, in: Currency Crises, pages 285-323, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Carmen M. Reinhart & Graciela L. Kaminsky, 1999. "The Twin Crises: The Causes of Banking and Balance-of-Payments Problems," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(3), pages 473-500, June.
    6. Calvo, Guillermo A. & Mendoza, Enrique G., 1996. "Mexico's balance-of-payments crisis: a chronicle of a death foretold," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(3-4), pages 235-264, November.
    7. 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.
    8. Robert Flood & Nancy Marion, 1994. "The Size and Timing of Devaluations in Capital-Controlled Developing Countries," NBER Working Papers 4957, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. 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.
    10. Jeffrey D. Sachs & Aaron Tornell & Andrés Velasco, 1996. "Financial Crises in Emerging Markets: The Lessons from 1995," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 27(1), pages 147-216.
    11. Andrew Berg & Catherine Pattillo, 1999. "Are Currency Crises Predictable? A Test," IMF Staff Papers, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 46(2), pages 1-1.
    12. 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.
    13. Aaron Tornell, 1999. "Common Fundamentals in the Tequila and Asian Crises," Harvard Institute of Economic Research Working Papers 1868, Harvard - Institute of Economic Research.
    14. Blanco, Herminio & Garber, Peter M, 1986. "Recurrent Devaluation and Speculative Attacks on the Mexican Peso," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 94(1), pages 148-166, February.
    15. Frankel, Jeffrey A. & Rose, Andrew K., 1996. "Currency crashes in emerging markets: An empirical treatment," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(3-4), pages 351-366, November.
    16. Giancarlo Corsetti & Paolo Pesenti & Nouriel Roubini, 1998. "What Caused the Asian Currency and Financial Crisis? Part I: A Macroeconomic Overview," NBER Working Papers 6833, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. Berg, Andrew & Pattillo, Catherine, 1999. "Predicting currency crises:: The indicators approach and an alternative," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 18(4), pages 561-586, August.
    18. Giancarlo Corsetti & Paolo Pesenti & Nouriel Roubini, 1998. "What Caused the Asian Currency and Financial Crisis? Part II: The Policy Debate," NBER Working Papers 6834, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. Steven Radelet & Jeffrey Sachs, 1998. "The Onset of the East Asian Financial Crisis," NBER Working Papers 6680, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    20. Goldfajn, Ilan & Valdes, Rodrigo O., 1998. "Are currency crises predictable?," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 42(3-5), pages 873-885, May.
    21. Jason Furman & Joseph E. Stiglitz, 1998. "Economic Crises: Evidence and Insights from East Asia," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 29(2), pages 1-136.
    22. Graciela Laura Kaminsky, 1999. "Currency and Banking Crises: The Early Warnings of Distress," IMF Working Papers 1999/178, International Monetary Fund.
    23. Mr. Christian B. Mulder & Mr. Matthieu Bussière, 1999. "External Vulnerability in Emerging Market Economies: How High Liquidity Can Offset Weak Fundamentals and the Effects of Contagion," IMF Working Papers 1999/088, International Monetary Fund.
    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. Ari, Ali, 2012. "Early warning systems for currency crises: The Turkish case," Economic Systems, Elsevier, vol. 36(3), pages 391-410.
    2. Frankel, Jeffrey & Saravelos, George, 2012. "Can leading indicators assess country vulnerability? Evidence from the 2008–09 global financial crisis," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(2), pages 216-231.
    3. Komulainen, Tuomas, 2004. "Essays on financial crises in emerging markets," Scientific Monographs, Bank of Finland, number 2004_029.
    4. repec:zbw:bofism:2004_029 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Tuomas Komulainen & ) & Johanna Lukkarila, 2003. "What drives financial crises in emerging markets?," Macroeconomics 0304010, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. Pavel Trunin & M. Kamenskih, 2007. "Monitoring Financial Stability In Developing Economies (Case of Russia)," Research Paper Series, Gaidar Institute for Economic Policy, issue 111.
    7. Jeffrey A. Frankel & George Saravelos, 2010. "Are Leading Indicators of Financial Crises Useful for Assessing Country Vulnerability? Evidence from the 2008-09 Global Crisis," NBER Working Papers 16047, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Christofides, Charis & Eicher, Theo S. & Papageorgiou, Chris, 2016. "Did established Early Warning Signals predict the 2008 crises?," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 81(C), pages 103-114.
    9. Matthieu Bussière, 2013. "Balance of payment crises in emerging markets: how early were the ‘early’ warning signals?," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 45(12), pages 1601-1623, April.
    10. Mustapha Djennas & Mohamed Benbouziane & Meriem Djennas, 2011. "An Approach of Combining Empirical Mode Decomposition and Neural Network Learning for Currency Crisis Forecasting," Working Papers 627, Economic Research Forum, revised 09 Jan 2011.
    11. Ari, Ali, 2008. "An Early Warning Signals Approach for Currency Crises: The Turkish Case," MPRA Paper 25858, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 2009.
    12. Brana, Sophie & Chenaf-Nicet, Dalila, 2001. "Indicateurs avancés de crise de change : un examen critique," L'Actualité Economique, Société Canadienne de Science Economique, vol. 77(4), pages 569-592, décembre.
    13. Frankel, Jeffrey, 2010. "Monetary Policy in Emerging Markets," Handbook of Monetary Economics, in: Benjamin M. Friedman & Michael Woodford (ed.), Handbook of Monetary Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 25, pages 1439-1520, Elsevier.
    14. Marek Dabrowski, 2002. "Currency Crises in Emerging - Market Economis: Causes, Consequences and Policy Lessons," CASE Network Reports 0051, CASE-Center for Social and Economic Research.
    15. Lin, Chin-Shien & Khan, Haider A. & Chang, Ruei-Yuan & Wang, Ying-Chieh, 2008. "A new approach to modeling early warning systems for currency crises: Can a machine-learning fuzzy expert system predict the currency crises effectively?," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 27(7), pages 1098-1121, November.
    16. Chowdhry, Bhagwan & Goyal, Amit, 2000. "Understanding the financial crisis in Asia," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 8(2), pages 135-152, May.
    17. Komulainen, Tuomas, 2004. "Essays on financial crises in emerging markets," Bank of Finland Scientific Monographs, Bank of Finland, volume 0, number sm2004_029, July.
    18. Bussiere, Matthieu & Fratzscher, Marcel, 2006. "Towards a new early warning system of financial crises," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 25(6), pages 953-973, October.
    19. Bussiere, Matthieu & Fratzscher, Marcel, 2006. "Towards a new early warning system of financial crises," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 25(6), pages 953-973, October.
    20. KOMULAINEN Tuomas LUKKARILA Johanna, 2010. "What Drives Financial Crises in Emerging Markets?," EcoMod2003 330700082, EcoMod.
    21. Ms. Sweta Chaman Saxena & Ms. Valerie Cerra, 2000. "Contagion, Monsoons, and Domestic Turmoil in Indonesia: A Case Study in the Asian Currency Crisis," IMF Working Papers 2000/060, International Monetary Fund.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    WP; probability of crisis; KLR crisis date; crisis index; currency crisis; Currency crises; vulnerability indicators; Asian crisis; balance of payments crises; crisis prediction; crisis countries Thailand; crisis probability; crisis date; Real exchange rates; Early warning systems; Probit models; Current account; Global; Asia and Pacific; Africa;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F31 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - Foreign Exchange
    • F47 - International Economics - - Macroeconomic Aspects of International Trade and Finance - - - Forecasting and Simulation: Models and Applications

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:imf:imfwpa:1998/154. 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: Akshay Modi (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/imfffus.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.