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Now showing items 11-19 of 19
Monetary policy under flexible exchange rates: an introduction to inflation targeting
Both policymakers and economists increasingly accept that the main medium- to long-run goal of monetary policy is the pursuit of price stability, defined as maintaining a low and stable rate of inflation. A high and variable inflation rate is socially and economically costly.
Response to external and inflation schocks in a small open economy
Monetary policy design has experienced major changes over the last twenty years. These changes had their origin in changes in macroeconomic theory, a better understanding of the importance of achieving and maintaining low inflation, and the abandonment of fixed pegs in favor of floating exchange rate ...
Exchange rate interventions and insurance: is fear of floating a cause for concern?
Fear of floating has recently come to be seen as one of the central de facto characteristics of exchange rate regimes in emerging markets, after first being identified by Calvo and Reinhart (2002). The interpretation of this phenomenon is still open to question. Does the optimal monetary regime for ...
The relationship between exchange rates and inflation targeting revisited
For decades, the exchange rate was at the center of macroeconomic policy debates in emerging markets. Many countries used the nominal exchange rate to bring down inflation, –others—mostly in Latin America—used the exchange rate to implicitly tax the export sector. Currency crises were common and usually ...
Currency mismatches in chilean nonfinancial corporations
The potential financial vulnerability that can occur when private sector or government agents acquire high levels of foreign currency debt has been at the center of discussion since the financial crises that affected the countries of Southeast Asia in the late 1990s. To the extent that a mismatch is ...
Capital controls in Chile: were they effective?
Controls on international capital flows have no place in a world without policy distortions and markt failures. Capital controls can only be justified as second-best measures to compensate for nonremovable policy distortions, including inadequate regulation and supervision of the financial and corporate ...
Monetary policy in Latin America in the 1990s
For decades until the early 1990s, Latin America was the region of the world with the highest average level of inflation. High inflation was the cumulative result of a long history of activist economic policies based on a disregard for macroeconomic stability. These policies culminated in large ...
Overshootings and reversals: the role of monetary policy
Does tight monetary policy stabilize the currency after a collapse?. Does the effect of high interest rates on the exchange rate depend on the condition of the banking system? The East Asian crises and other recent currency crises have put these questions at the center of economic policymaking decisions.
International reserve management and the current account
This paper assesses the costs and benefits of active international reserve management. The first part outlines and appraises various channels through which international reserve management may enhance economic performance, focusing on two important channels: it lowers the real exchange rate volatility ...