Early Indicators of Currency Crises. Review of some literature

Financial crises have become relatively frequent events since the beginning of the 1980s. They have taken three main forms: currency crises, banking crises, or both . so called twin crises. As the number of developed economies, developing countries, and economies in transition experienced severe financial crashes researchers are trying to propose a framework for systemic analyses. That is why attempts to advance the understanding of features leading to the outbreak of financial crisis as well as the reasons of vulnerability have become more and more important. In recent years a number of efforts have been undertaken to identify variables that act as early warning signals for crises. The purpose of this paper is to provide some perspective on the issue of early warning signals of vulnerability to currency crises. In particular, it is aimed at presenting and highlighting the main findings of theoretical literature in this area. An effective warning system should consider a broad variety of indicators, as currency crises seem to be usually associated with multiple economic and sometimes political problems. Indicators that have proven to be particularly useful in anticipating crises and received empirical support include the development of international reserves, real exchange rate, domestic credit, credit to the public sector, domestic inflation, and structure and financing of public debt. Other indicators that have found support are trade balance, export performance, money growth, M2/international reserves ratio, foreign interest rates, real GDP growth, and fiscal deficit. Many of the proposed leading indicators have been able to predict particular crises, however, only few have showed ability to do so consistently. Generally, economic models can be said to be more successful in predicting crises that erupt because of weak fundamentals, which make country vulnerable to adverse shocks. They are less likely in anticipating crises due to selffulfilling expectations or pure contagion effects. So far economists are only able to identify situations in which an economy could face the risk of a financial crisis. This is most because of the well-known fact that if we knew the crisis would have already occurred. Warning indicators seem to be unlikely to predict crises in precise way but their analyses can provide extended information about impending problems what enables to take preventive measures.