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A "Vertical" Analysis of Crises and Intervention: Fear of Floating and Ex-ante Problems

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  • Ricardo Caballero
  • Arvind Krishnamurthy

Abstract

Emerging economies are prone to crises triggered by external shocks. During these crises, should the central bank stabilize the currency or domestic interest rates? If the choice is outside the central bank's control, as in a currency board, are there good policy substitutes? We argue that these questions are best analyzed in a 'vertical' framework, where the supply of external funds faced by the country is inelastic during the crisis and monetary policy affects mostly the domestic cost of scarce international liquidity. This is in contrast to the standard 'horizontal' framework where supply is elastic at the (now higher) international interest rate. In this vertical view, raising domestic interest rates during a crisis has relatively limited output consequences, while not doing so causes a sharp exchange rate overshooting. This asymmetry naturally leads to the widely observed fear of floating. However, while this response is ex-post rationalizable, it has negative ex-ante consequences as it exacerbates the structurally insufficient private sector incentives to insure against crises. Ex-ante, optimal monetary policy is countercyclical, and increasingly so as financial development falls. The silver lining for countries with limited financial development that cannot (or should not) overcome this conservative-central-bank time inconsistency problem, is that since the main role of monetary policy in the vertical view is one of incentives, it can be substituted by ex-ante measures to induce the private sector to insure against crises.

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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number 8428.

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Date of creation: Aug 2001
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Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:8428

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  1. Bernanke, Ben S. & Gertler, Mark & Gilchrist, Simon, 1999. "The financial accelerator in a quantitative business cycle framework," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & M. Woodford (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 21, pages 1341-1393 Elsevier.
  2. Luis Felipe Cespedes & Roberto Chang & Andres Velasco, 2000. "Balance Sheets and Exchange Rate Policy," NBER Working Papers 7840, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  3. Robert J. Barro & David B. Gordon, 1983. "A Positive Theory of Monetary Policy in a Natural-Rate Model," NBER Working Papers 0807, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  4. Reinhart, Carmen & Calvo, Guillermo, 2002. "Fear of floating," MPRA Paper 14000, University Library of Munich, Germany.
  5. Ricardo J. Caballero & Arvind Krishnamurthy, 2000. "International Liquidity Management: Sterilization Policy in Illiquid Financial Markets," Econometric Society World Congress 2000 Contributed Papers 1700, Econometric Society.
  6. Ricardo Hausmann & Ugo Panizza & Ernesto H. Stein, 2000. "Why Do Countries Float the Way They Float?," Research Department Publications 4205, Inter-American Development Bank, Research Department.
  7. Mark Gertler & Simon Gilchrist & Fabio M. Natalucci, 2007. "External Constraints on Monetary Policy and the Financial Accelerator," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 39(2-3), pages 295-330, 03.
  8. Lawrence J. Christiano & Christopher Gust & Jorge Roldos, 2002. "Monetary Policy in a Financial Crisis," NBER Working Papers 9005, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  9. Kenneth Rogoff, 1987. "Reputational Constraints on Monetary Policy," NBER Working Papers 1986, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  10. Caballero, Ricardo J. & Krishnamurthy, Arvind, 2004. "Smoothing sudden stops," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 119(1), pages 104-127, November.
  11. Douglas W. Diamond & Raghuram G. Rajan, 2003. "Liquidity Shortages and Banking Crises," NBER Working Papers 10071, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  12. Ricardo Caballero & Arvind Krishnamurthy, 2000. "International and Domestic Collateral Constraints in a Model of Emerging Market Crises," NBER Working Papers 7971, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  13. Kydland, Finn E & Prescott, Edward C, 1977. "Rules Rather Than Discretion: The Inconsistency of Optimal Plans," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 85(3), pages 473-91, June.
  14. Ricardo J. Caballero & Arvind Krishnamurthy, 2000. "Dollarization of Liabilities: Underinsurance and Domestic Financial Underdevelopment," NBER Working Papers 7792, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
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Cited by:
  1. Devereux, Michael B & Lane, Philip R., 2002. "Understanding Bilateral Exchange Rate Volatility," CEPR Discussion Papers 3518, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
  2. Ricardo Caballero & Arvind Krishnamurthy, 2001. "Smoothing Sudden Stops," NBER Working Papers 8427, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  3. Bersch, Julia & Klüh, Ulrich H., 2007. "When countries do not do what they say: Systematic discrepancies between exchange rate regime announcements and de facto policies," Discussion Papers in Economics 2072, University of Munich, Department of Economics.
  4. Eduardo J.J. Ganapolsky, 2003. "Optimal fear of floating: the role of currency mismatches and fiscal constraints," Working Paper 2003-31, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.
  5. Andrew Berg & Paolo Mauro & Eduardo Borensztein, 2002. "An Evaluation of Monetary Regime Options for Latin America," IMF Working Papers 02/211, International Monetary Fund.
  6. Pelin Berkmen & Eduardo A. Cavallo, 2007. "Exchange Rate Policy and Liability Dollarization: What Do the Data Reveal About Causality?," IMF Working Papers 07/33, International Monetary Fund.
  7. Eduardo J. J. Ganapolsky, 2004. "Optimal Fear of Floating: The Role of Currency Mismatches and Fiscal Constraints," Econometric Society 2004 Latin American Meetings 85, Econometric Society.
  8. Pablo García & Claudio Soto, 2004. "Large Hoardings of International Reserves: Are They Worth It?," Working Papers Central Bank of Chile 299, Central Bank of Chile.

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