Recent Issues In The Theory Of Flexible Exchange Rates

Volatile exchange rates and how to manage them are a contentious topic whenever economic policymakers gather in international meetings. This book examines the broad parameters of exchange rate policy in light of both high-powered theory and real-world experience. What are the costs and benefits of flexible versus fixed exchange rates? How much of a role should the exchange rate play in monetary policy? Why don't volatile exchange rates destabilize inflation and output? The principal finding of this book is that using monetary policy to fight exchange rate volatility, including through the adoption of a fixed exchange rate regime, leads to greater volatility of employment, output, and inflation. In other words, the "cure" for exchange rate volatility is worse than the disease. This finding is demonstrated in economic models, in historical case studies, and in statistical analysis of the data. The book devotes considerable attention to understanding the reasons why volatile exchange rates do not destabilize inflation and output. The book concludes that many countries would benefit from allowing greater flexibility of their exchange rates in order to target monetary policy at stabilization of their domestic economies. Few, if any, countries would benefit from a move in the opposite direction.

This book contains the papers, comments, and the discussion at a conference on "Flexible Exchange Rates and Stabilization Policy", held at Saltsjobaden, Stockholm, August 26–27, 1975. The papers integrate the flexible exchange rates theory with macro theory and stabilization policy analysis. .

First published in 2007. Exchange Rate Economics: Theories and Evidence is the second edition of Floating Exchange Rates: Theories and Evidence, and builds on the successful content and structure of the previous edition, but has been comprehensively updated and expanded to include additional literature on the determination of both fixed and floating exchange rates. Core topics covered include: • the purchasing power parity hypothesis and the PPP puzzle; • the monetary and portfolio-balance approaches to exchange rates; • the new open economy macroeconomics approach to exchange rates; and • the determination of exchange rates in target zone models and speculative attack models. Exchange Rate Economics: Theories and Evidence also includes extensive discussion of recent econometric work on exchange rates with a particular focus on equilibrium exchange rates and measuring exchange rate misalignment, as well as discussion on the non-fundamentals-based approaches to exchange rate behaviour, such as the market microstructure approach. The book will appeal to academics and postgraduate students with an interest in all aspects of international finance and will also be of interest to practitioners concerned with issues relating to equilibrium exchange rates and the forecastability of currencies in terms of macroeconomic fundamentals.

This important reference collection presents the leading papers on theoretical and empirical modelling of exchange rates. Volume I: Exchange Rate Determination: Theory and Evidence, consists of four sections. Section 1 contains 'groundwork' papers; these are essentially survey papers, which set the scene for much of the theoretical and empirical work presented in the volumes. Seminal papers relating to the theoretical determination of exchange rates are contained in Section 2, whilst the empirical evidence on such models is contained in Section 3. Volume I closes with a number of papers indicating the likely future development of research on the exchange rates. The papers in Volume II: Foreign Exchange Market Efficiency, are again grouped into four sections. The key papers from the efficiency of foreign exchange markets are presented in Section 1, with papers which seek to explain the oft-quoted finding of market inefficiency grouped in Section 2. Papers which seek to model the influence of new information on the exchange rate are contained in Section 3. The final section of the book contains papers on key international parity conditions, which are so central to exchange rate economics. As an introduction to both volumes, the editors have prepared a comprehensive literature survey. This survey places the papers contained in the volumes in the context of the exchange rate literature.