When a country abandons a fixed, or target zone exchange regime it usually claims that the regime was "fundamentally" sound but that it was undermined by pernicious speculation. The validity of the claim is impossible to assess using only observable data-there always exists a future path of current account surpluses that would make the regime sound, and speculators' (investors'?) motives are unobservable. This paper analyzes the crucial role of imperfect credibility in a currency crisis with a stochastic dynamic rational expectations regime switch model. The exchange regime is sound, e.g., a currency board-the only market failure is that the Central Bank cannot make a credible commitment to maintain the regime. The paper has two innovations: (1) It specifies the cost of imperfect credibility, and (2) It quantifies the cost of imperfect credibility. Imperfect credibility generates small (but costly) average interest rate differentials. Imperfect credibility cannot generate large interest differentials, but a surprisingly small "fundamental" currency overvaluation added to the basic specification generates large interest rate differentials. The paper's main result- that a lack of credibility cannot generate large interest rate differentials in a sound regime-is robust. The model in the paper is stylized, but the results are rich. The policy maker (Central Bank) and investors optimize. Investors fear devaluation and the Bank cannot make a credible commitment to allay their fears. Investors demand an agency currency premium. There is no pernicious speculation-the premium fairly prices the country's assets but it increases the country's cost of capital. The Bank abandons the regime when the expected present value of the agency cost of capital outweighs the expected present value of the benefit from remaining in the regime. The model generates multiple rational expectations equilibria and a variety of patterns linking the exchange rate to the interest rate differential. I parameterized the model using estimates of the exchange rate process for Hong Kong. The model generated agency currency premiums average ½%. The model generated interest rate differentials are consistent with the interest differentials in Hong Kong before the Asian financial crisis in July of 1997. After July 1997 a lack of credibility is not sufficient to explain the observed interest rate differentials of 4-6%.
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
Find related papers by JEL classification: F31 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - Foreign Exchange C63 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Mathematical Methods and Programming - - - Computational Techniques
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.: