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Elections and the Timing of Devaluations

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Author Info
Ernesto H. Stein
Jorge M. Streb

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Abstract

This paper presents a rational political budget cycle model for the open economy, in which devaluations are delayed in the run-up to elections, in order to increase the electoral chances of the party in office. By concentrating on the closed economy, previous political cycle models had overlooked the influence of elections on the behavior of exchange rates. We introduce voter uncertainty in two different dimensions. Not only are voters uncertain regarding the competency of the incumbent. They also ignore the degree to which the incumbent is opportunistic, i.e. willing to distort the economy for electoral gain. When there is only uncertainty about competence, we obtain a separating equilibrium, like in the previous political budget cycle literature. However, when uncertainty about opportunism is introduced, a partially pooling equilibrium emerges: an incompetent, opportunistic incumbent delays a devaluation until after elections, mimicking a competent incumbent, while the competent does not distort the optimal pattern of the exchange rate, regardless of the degree of opportunism. The model's prediction that there is a tendency to delay devaluations until after elections is used to look at the empirical evidence on devaluations around elections.

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Paper provided by Universidad del CEMA in its series CEMA Working Papers: Serie Documentos de Trabajo. with number 140.

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Date of creation: Jan 1999
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Handle: RePEc:cem:doctra:140

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Related research
Keywords: devaluations; elections; political budget cycles; incomplete information.;

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
E31 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Price Level; Inflation; Deflation
D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Models of Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior

References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:

  1. Kenneth Rogoff, 1990. "Equilibrium Political Budget Cycles," NBER Working Papers 2428, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  2. Nordhaus, William D, 1975. "The Political Business Cycle," Review of Economic Studies, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 42(2), pages 169-90, April. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  3. Ernesto H. Stein & Jeffry Frieden, 2000. "The Political Economy of Exchange Rate Policy in Latin America: An Analytical Overview," RES Working Papers 3118, Inter-American Development Bank, Research Department. [Downloadable!]
  4. Eliana Cardoso, 1991. "From Inertia to Megainflation: Brazil in the 1980s," NBER Working Papers 3585, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  5. Michael W. Klein & Nancy P. Marion, 1994. "Explaining the Duration of Exchange-Rate Pegs," NBER Working Papers 4651, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  6. Calvo, Guillermo A, 1986. "Temporary Stabilization: Predetermined Exchange Rates," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 94(6), pages 1319-29, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  7. Rogoff, Kenneth & Sibert, Anne, 1988. "Elections and Macroeconomic Policy Cycles," Review of Economic Studies, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 55(1), pages 1-16, January. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  8. Obstfeld, Maurice & Rogoff, Kenneth, 1995. "The Mirage of Fixed Exchange Rates," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 9(4), pages 73-96, Fall. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  9. Lucas, Robert E, Jr, 1980. "Equilibrium in a Pure Currency Economy," Economic Inquiry, Oxford University Press, vol. 18(2), pages 203-20, April.
  10. Barro, Robert J, 1979. "On the Determination of the Public Debt," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 87(5), pages 940-71, October. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  11. Thomas J. Sargent & Neil Wallace, 1981. "Some unpleasant monetarist arithmetic," Quarterly Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, issue Fall. [Downloadable!]
  12. Reinhart, Carmen & Vegh, Carlos, 1994. "Intertemporal consumption substitution and inflation stabilization:An empirical investigation," MPRA Paper 13427, University Library of Munich, Germany. [Downloadable!]
  13. Juan P. Nicolini, 1993. "More on the Time Inconsistency of Optimal Monetary Policy," Economics Working Papers 56, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra. [Downloadable!]
  14. Ernesto Stein and Jorge Streb., 1994. "Political Stabilization Cycles in High Inflation Economies," Center for International and Development Economics Research (CIDER) Working Papers C94-039, University of California at Berkeley.
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  15. Alesina, Alberto & Tabellini, Guido, 1988. "Credibility and politics," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 32(2-3), pages 542-550, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Marco Bonomo & Cristina Terra, 1999. "The Political Economy of Exchange Rate Policy in Brazil: 1964-1997," RES Working Papers 3065, Inter-American Development Bank, Research Department. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  2. Gerardo Esquivel & Felipe Larraín, 2003. "¿Qué Sabemos Realmente sobre las Crisis Cambiarias?," Cuadernos de Economía (Latin American Journal of Economics), Instituto de Economía. Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile., vol. 40(121), pages 656-667. [Downloadable!]
  3. Piero Ghezzi & Ernesto Stein & Jorge M. Streb, 2000. "Real exchange rate cycles around elections," CEMA Working Papers: Serie Documentos de Trabajo. 174, Universidad del CEMA. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  4. Serven, Luis & Frankel, Jeffrey & Fajnzylber, Eduardo & Schmukler, Sergio, 2000. "Verifying exchange rate regimes," Policy Research Working Paper Series 2397, The World Bank. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  5. Terra, Maria Cristina T., 2007. "The Political Economy of Exchange Rate in Brazil," Economics Working Papers (Ensaios Economicos da EPGE) 656, Graduate School of Economics, Getulio Vargas Foundation (Brazil). [Downloadable!]
  6. Jorge M. Streb, 2001. "Signaling in Political Cycles. How far are you willing to go?," CEMA Working Papers: Serie Documentos de Trabajo. 193, Universidad del CEMA. [Downloadable!]
  7. Vladimir Klyuev, 2003. "The Distributional Consequences of Real Exchange Rate Adjustment," IMF Working Papers 03/133, International Monetary Fund. [Downloadable!]
  8. Marco Antonio Cesar Bonomo & Maria Cristina Trindade Terra, 1999. "The Political Economy of Exchange Rate Policy in Brazil: an Empirical Assessment," Revista Brasileira de Economia, Graduate School of Economics, Getulio Vargas Foundation (Brazil), vol. 53(4), April. [Downloadable!]
  9. Frankel, Jeffrey, 2005. "Contractionary Currency Crashes In Developing Countries," Working Paper Series rwp05-017, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  10. Jeffrey Frankel & Sergio Schmukler & Luis Serven, 2000. "Verifiability and the Vanishing Intermediate Exchange Rate Regime," NBER Working Papers 7901, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  11. Amine Mati & Emanuele Baldacci & Sanjeev Gupta, 2008. "Is it (Still) Mostly Fiscal? Determinants of Sovereign Spreads in Emerging Markets," IMF Working Papers 08/259, International Monetary Fund. [Downloadable!]
  12. Rodríguez, Javier & Santiso, Javier, 2008. "Banking on Democracy: The Political Economy of International Private Bank Lending in Emerging Markets," MPRA Paper 12907, University Library of Munich, Germany. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  13. Jorge M. Streb, 1999. "Reelection or term limits? The short and the long view of economic policy," CEMA Working Papers: Serie Documentos de Trabajo. 144, Universidad del CEMA. [Downloadable!]
  14. Moser, Christoph, 2007. "The Impact of Political Risk on Sovereign Bond Spreads - Evidence from Latin America," Proceedings of the German Development Economics Conference, Göttingen 2007 24, Verein für Socialpolitik, Research Committee Development Economics. [Downloadable!]
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