Policies that distort domestic saving decisions have general equilibrium effects on trade flows and the real exchange rate. In particular increasing domestic savings keeps the real exchange rate undervalued depressing imports and increasing exports. However there are important differences between ...

The role of inflationary persistence has become a recurrent theme in discussions on stabilization programs (Fischer, 1986). This has particularly been the case in recent debates on the merits of exchange-rate-based stabilization plans. Some authors claim that anti-inflationary programs based on ...

There is no consensus about the economic implications of real exchange rate (RER) misalignments. Some authors argue that keeping the real exchange rate away from its equilibrium level creates distortions in the relative prices of tradable and nontradable goods generating misleading signals to economic ...

Since the mid-1970s, the macroeconomic consequences of wage indexation has been the subject of considerable research. Starting with an enthusiastic proposal for indexation by Friedman (1974) and two influential papers by Gray (1976) and Fischer (1977), the academic literature has examined the effects ...

One of the most popular pieces of wisdom in economic policy is the idea that fiscal policy is more effective in a fixed exchange rate regime or a currency union than in a flexible exchange rate regime. In this paper we revisit the theoretical foundations of the conventional wisdom on the relative ...

With the end of intermediate exchange rate regimes, countries are either abandoning domestic monetary policy (by choosing super-hard pegs or relinquishing their national currencies altogether) or strengthening independent monetary policymaking (by adopting floating exchange rates, of either the clean ...

In the twentieth century, Chile experienced most monetary and exchange rate regimes. Periods of fixed exchange rates usually ended in speculative attacks as a result of inconsistent policies or significant external shocks, generating serious real costs and larger exchange rate volatility.

In mid-January 1990, Brazil abandoned its crawling exchange rate band. Surprisingly enough, the country's economic performance in the aftermath of this episode was much better than expected, given the performance of other emerging market economies after a move toward floating. Despite the large ...

Chile was one of the world’s fastest-growing economies in the 1990s. Its growth rate of 6.8 percent per year from 1990 to 2000 (inclusive) was the seventh highest in the world, and by far the highest in Latin America. Poverty was halved, and while this was overwhelmingly due to growth rather than a ...

Inflation targeting in an open economy insolves a number of complexities that do not arise with inflation targeting in a clises economy. One of these is that central banks in open economies have to decide how to repond to changes in the exchange rate.