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How Well do Foreign Exchange Markets Function: Might a Tobin Tax Help?

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Author Info
Jeffrey A. Frankel

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Abstract

Figures for 1995 estimate trading by dealers in the foreign exchange market at over $1,200 billion per day, most of it with other dealers. Some have linked this volume to concerns of excessive volatility in the market. Tobin's proposal to address this volatility with a small tax on all foreign exchange transactions has not received the serious attention it deserves. The paper argues that a better case can be made for the proposition that the tax might dampen exchange rate volatility than most economists believe. Calculations show that the tax, unlike some forms of capital control, would fall far more heavily on short-term transactions than long-term. Survey data and a simple model suggest, in turn, that short-term activity can be destabilizing. The paper also offers crude estimates of the revenue that would be raised from the Tobin tax. It is left to other authors to examine a major shortcoming of the proposal, enforceability.

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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number 5422.

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Date of creation: Jan 1996
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Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:5422

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F31 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - Foreign Exchange

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. James Tobin, 1978. "A Proposal for International Monetary Reform," Eastern Economic Journal, Eastern Economic Association, vol. 4(3-4), pages 153-159, Jul/Oct. [Downloadable!]
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  2. Eichengreen, Barry & Tobin, James & Wyplosz, Charles, 1995. "Two Cases for Sand in the Wheels of International Finance," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 105(428), pages 162-72, January. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  3. Jeffrey A. Frankel, 1998. "The Regionalization of the World Economy," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number fran98-1.
  4. Martin Eichenbaum & Charles Evans, 1992. "Some empirical evidence on the effects of monetary policy shocks on exchange rates," Working Paper Series, Macroeconomic Issues 92-32, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
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  5. De Grauwe, Paul & Dewachter, Hans, 1990. "A Chaotic Monetary Model of the Exchange Rate," CEPR Discussion Papers 466, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  6. Parthasrathi Shome & Janet Gale Stotsky, 1995. "Financial Transactions Taxes," IMF Working Papers 95/77, International Monetary Fund.
  7. Craig S. Hakkio, 1994. "Should we throw sand in the gears of financial markets?," Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, issue Q II, pages 17-30. [Downloadable!]
  8. Goodhart, Charles, 1988. "The Foreign Exchange Market: A Random Walk with a Dragging Anchor," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 55(220), pages 437-60, November. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  9. De Long, J Bradford & Andrei Shleifer & Lawrence H. Summers & Robert J. Waldmann, 1990. "Noise Trader Risk in Financial Markets," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 98(4), pages 703-38, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  10. Rudiger Dornbusch and Jeffrey Frankel., 1988. "The Flexible Exchange Rate System: Experience and Alternatives," Economics Working Papers 8868, University of California at Berkeley.
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  11. Campbell, John Y. & Clarida, Richard H., 1987. "The dollar and real interest rates," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 27(1), pages 103-139, January. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  12. Jeffrey A. Frankel, 1993. "On Exchange Rates," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262061546.
  13. Frankel, Jeffrey A & Froot, Kenneth A, 1987. "Using Survey Data to Test Standard Propositions Regarding Exchange Rate Expectations," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 77(1), pages 133-53, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  14. Kenneth A. Froot & Takatoshi Ito, 1990. "On the Consistency of Short-run and Long-run Exchange Rate Expectations," NBER Working Papers 2577, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  15. Fieleke, Norman S, 1981. "Foreign-Currency Positioning by U.S. Firms: Some New Evidence," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 63(1), pages 35-42, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  16. Krugman, Paul & Miller, Marcus, 1993. "Why have a target zone?," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(1), pages 279-314, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  17. Cutler, David M & Poterba, James M & Summers, Lawrence H, 1991. "Speculative Dynamics," Review of Economic Studies, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 58(3), pages 529-46, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  18. Glosten, Lawrence R, 1994. " Is the Electronic Open Limit Order Book Inevitable?," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 49(4), pages 1127-61, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  19. Jeffrey A. Frankel and Andrew K. Rose., 1995. "A Survey of Empirical Research on Nominal Exchange Rates," Center for International and Development Economics Research (CIDER) Working Papers C95-051, University of California at Berkeley.
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  20. Jeffrey A. Frankel & Kenneth A. Froot, 1986. "Short-term and long-term expectations of the yen/dollar exchange rate: evidence from survey data," International Finance Discussion Papers 292, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.). [Downloadable!]
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  21. Madhavan, Ananth, 1992. " Trading Mechanisms in Securities Markets," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 47(2), pages 607-41, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  22. Takatoshi Ito, 1993. "Short-run and Long-run Expectations of the Yen/Dollar Exchange Rate," NBER Working Papers 4545, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  23. Froot, Kenneth A & Frankel, Jeffrey A, 1989. "Forward Discount Bias: Is It an Exchange Risk Premium?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 104(1), pages 139-61, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  24. Jeffrey A. Frankel & Giampaolo Galli & Alberto Giovannini, 1996. "The Microstructure of Foreign Exchange Markets," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number fran96-1.
  25. Jeffrey A. Frankel, 1994. "The Internationalization of Equity Markets," NBER Working Papers 4590, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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Full references

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. Markus Haberer, 2003. "Some Criticism of the Tobin Tax," CoFE Discussion Paper 03-01, Center of Finance and Econometrics, University of Konstanz. [Downloadable!]
  2. Jeff Sheen, 1999. "Controlling International Capital Flows," Working Papers 9913, University of Sydney, Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  3. Christopher J. Neely & Lucio Sarno, 2002. "How well do monetary fundamentals forecast exchange rates?," Review, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, issue Sep, pages 51-74. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  4. Paolo Pelizzari & Frank Westerhoff, 2007. "Some Effects of Transaction Taxes Under Different Microstructures," Research Paper Series 212, Quantitative Finance Research Centre, University of Technology, Sydney. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  5. Andrea Terzi, 2004. "Is a transactions tax an effective means to stabilize the foreign exchange market?," International Finance 0403007, EconWPA. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  6. Selahattin Dibooglu & Faik Koray, 2001. "The Behavior of the Real Exchange Rate Under Fixed and Floating Exchange Rate Regimes," Open Economies Review, Springer, vol. 12(2), pages 123-143, April. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  7. Andreas Polk, 1999. "Multinationale Investitionsabkommen - Lernen aus dem MAI?," Working Papers 9905, University of Zurich, Socioeconomic Institute. [Downloadable!]
  8. Francis Vitek, 2005. "The Exchange Rate Forecasting Puzzle," International Finance 0509005, EconWPA. [Downloadable!]
  9. Christopher J. Neely, 2005. "The case for foreign exchange intervention: the government as an active reserve manager," Working Papers 2004-031, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. [Downloadable!]
  10. Pedro Albuquerque, 2006. "BAD taxation: Disintermediation and illiquidity in a bank account debits tax model," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer, vol. 13(5), pages 601-624, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  11. Christopher J. Neely, 1997. "Technical analysis in the foreign exchange market: a layman's guide," Review, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, issue Sep, pages 23-38. [Downloadable!]
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