IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pen/papers/11-039.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Defending Against Speculative Attacks: Reputation, Learning, and Coordination

Author

Listed:
  • Chong Huang

    (Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania)

Abstract

How does the central bank's incentive to build a reputation affect speculators' ability to coordinate and the likelihood of the devaluation outcome during speculative currency crises? What role does market information play in speculators' coordination and the central bank's reputation building? I address these questions in a dynamic regime change game that highlights the interaction between the central bank's reputation building and speculators' individual learning. On the one hand, the central bank has private information about its value from the currency peg and decides whether to maintain it. By defending against speculative attacks, it can build a reputation of defending, which may deter future attacks. On the other hand, speculators individually learn the central bank's value, and such learning may encourage speculators to coordinate an attack. I show that though learning makes the central bank's value approximate common knowledge over time, there is a unique equilibrium when learning is slow. In this equilibrium, no speculator attacks and the central bank sustains the currency peg forever, because the central bank obtains commitment power through the incentive to build a reputation. When learning is fast, there may be equilibria with attacks. In any equilibrium with attacks, the onset of the attack depends on the entire learning process. Once speculators attack, they attack frequently and infinitely often. Consequently, the central bank has no incentive to build a reputation and abandons the currency peg almost surely.

Suggested Citation

  • Chong Huang, 2011. "Defending Against Speculative Attacks: Reputation, Learning, and Coordination," PIER Working Paper Archive 11-039, Penn Institute for Economic Research, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania.
  • Handle: RePEc:pen:papers:11-039
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://economics.sas.upenn.edu/sites/default/files/filevault/11-039_0.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Eichengreen, Barry & Tobin, James & Wyplosz, Charles, 1995. "Two Cases for Sand in the Wheels of International Finance," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 105(428), pages 162-172, January.
    2. 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.
    3. Carlsson, Hans & van Damme, Eric, 1993. "Global Games and Equilibrium Selection," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 61(5), pages 989-1018, September.
    4. Drew Fudenberg & David K. Levine, 2008. "Reputation And Equilibrium Selection In Games With A Patient Player," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Drew Fudenberg & David K Levine (ed.), A Long-Run Collaboration On Long-Run Games, chapter 7, pages 123-142, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    5. Dasgupta, Amil & Steiner, Jakub & Stewart, Colin, 2012. "Dynamic coordination with individual learning," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 74(1), pages 83-101.
    6. Flavio Toxvaerd & Chryssi Giannitsarou, 2004. "Recursive global games," Money Macro and Finance (MMF) Research Group Conference 2003 104, Money Macro and Finance Research Group.
    7. Salant, Stephen W, 1983. "The Vulnerability of Price Stabilization Schemes to Speculative Attack," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 91(1), pages 1-38, February.
    8. George-Marios Angeletos & Christian Hellwig & Alessandro Pavan, 2003. "Coordination and Policy Traps," NBER Working Papers 9767, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. 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.
    10. Kreps, David M. & Wilson, Robert, 1982. "Reputation and imperfect information," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 27(2), pages 253-279, August.
    11. 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.
    12. Paul Heidhues & Nicolas Melissas, 2006. "Equilibria in a dynamic global game: the role of cohort effects," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 28(3), pages 531-557, August.
    13. Itay Goldstein & Emre Ozdenoren & Kathy Yuan, 2011. "Learning and Complementarities in Speculative Attacks," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 78(1), pages 263-292.
    14. Morris, Stephen & Shin, Hyun Song & Yildiz, Muhamet, 2016. "Common belief foundations of global games," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 163(C), pages 826-848.
    15. Gaudet, Gerard & Moreaux, Michel & Salant, Stephen W., 2002. "Private Storage of Common Property," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 43(2), pages 280-302, March.
    16. Monderer, Dov & Samet, Dov, 1989. "Approximating common knowledge with common beliefs," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 1(2), pages 170-190, June.
    17. 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.
    18. Allan Drazen, 2003. "Interest Rate Defense against Speculative Attack as a Signal. A Primer," NBER Chapters, in: Managing Currency Crises in Emerging Markets, pages 37-59, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. Milgrom, Paul & Roberts, John, 1982. "Predation, reputation, and entry deterrence," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 27(2), pages 280-312, August.
    20. George-Marios Angeletos & Christian Hellwig & Alessandro Pavan, 2006. "Signaling in a Global Game: Coordination and Policy Traps," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 114(3), pages 452-484, June.
    21. Barry Eichengreen & Charles Wyplosz, 1993. "The Unstable EMS," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 24(1), pages 51-144.
    22. 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.
    23. Chris Edmond, 2013. "Information Manipulation, Coordination, and Regime Change," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 80(4), pages 1422-1458.
    24. Chong Huang, 2011. "Coordination and Social Learning," PIER Working Paper Archive 11-021, Penn Institute for Economic Research, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania.
    25. Wiseman, Thomas, 2009. "Reputation and exogenous private learning," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 144(3), pages 1352-1357, May.
    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. 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.
    2. Huang, Chong, 2017. "Defending against speculative attacks: The policy maker's reputation," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 171(C), pages 1-34.
    3. George-Marios Angeletos & Chen Lian, 2016. "Incomplete Information in Macroeconomics: Accommodating Frictions in Coordination," NBER Working Papers 22297, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Piersanti, Giovanni, 2012. "The Macroeconomic Theory of Exchange Rate Crises," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199653126.
    5. 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.
    6. Kováč, Eugen & Steiner, Jakub, 2013. "Reversibility in dynamic coordination problems," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 77(1), pages 298-320.
    7. Chong Huang, 2011. "Coordination and Social Learning," PIER Working Paper Archive 11-021, Penn Institute for Economic Research, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania.
    8. Dasgupta, Amil & Steiner, Jakub & Stewart, Colin, 2012. "Dynamic coordination with individual learning," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 74(1), pages 83-101.
    9. 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.
    10. 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.
    11. , & ,, 2013. "Selection-free predictions in global games with endogenous information and multiple equilibria," Theoretical Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 8(3), September.
    12. 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.
    13. Cheung, Yin-Wong & Friedman, Daniel, 2009. "Speculative attacks: A laboratory study in continuous time," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 28(6), pages 1064-1082, October.
    14. 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.
    15. Assaf Razin & Itay Goldstein, 2012. "Review Of Theories of Financial Crises," 2012 Meeting Papers 214, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    16. Amil Dasgupta & Jakub Steiner & Colin Stewart, 2007. "Efficient Dynamic Coordination with Individual Learning," Working Papers tecipa-301, University of Toronto, Department of Economics.
    17. Kathy Yuan & Emre Ozdenoren & Itay Goldstein, 2008. "Learning and Complementarities: Implications for Speculative Attacks," 2008 Meeting Papers 276, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    18. Szkup, Michal & Trevino, Isabel, 2015. "Information acquisition in global games of regime change," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 160(C), pages 387-428.
    19. Olivier Jeanne, 1996. "Les modèles de crise de change : un essai de synthèse en relation avec la crise du franc de 1992-1993," Économie et Prévision, Programme National Persée, vol. 123(2), pages 147-162.
    20. Aleh Tsyvinski & Arijit Mukherji & Christian Hellwig, 2006. "Self-Fulfilling Currency Crises: The Role of Interest Rates," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(5), pages 1769-1787, December.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Speculative attacks; Reputation; Coordination; Common Learning;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness
    • D84 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Expectations; Speculations
    • F31 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - Foreign Exchange
    • G01 - Financial Economics - - General - - - Financial Crises

    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:pen:papers:11-039. 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: Administrator (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/deupaus.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.