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 ...

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 ...

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.

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.

Floating foreign exchange rates have gained increased support as a preferred system for reducing the vulnerability of emerging markets to external shocks. The volatility associated with floating exchange rates, however, exposes economic agents to the risk of changes in the valuation of the financial ...

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 ...

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.

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...