IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aea/aecrev/v76y1986i1p72-81.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Rational and Self-fulfilling Balance-of-Payments Crises

Author

Listed:
  • Obstfeld, Maurice

Abstract

Speculative attacks on a pegged exchange rate must sometimes occur ifasset-price paths are to be free of abnormal profit opportunities. Suchattacks are fully rational, as they reflect the market's response to aregime breakdown that is inevitable. The authors shows that under someexpectations about policy, balance-of-payments crises can also be purely self-fulfilling events. In such cases even a permanently viableregime may collapse, and the economy will possess multiple equilibriacorresponding to different subjective assessments of the probability ofa crisis. The behavior of the domestic interest rate will naturally reflect the possibility of a speculative attack. Copyright 1986 by American Economic Association.

Suggested Citation

  • Obstfeld, Maurice, 1986. "Rational and Self-fulfilling Balance-of-Payments Crises," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 76(1), pages 72-81, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:aea:aecrev:v:76:y:1986:i:1:p:72-81
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0002-8282%28198603%2976%3A1%3C72%3ARASBC%3E2.0.CO%3B2-D&origin=repec
    File Function: full text
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to JSTOR subscribers. See http://www.jstor.org for details.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Salant, Stephen W, 1983. "The Vulnerability of Price Stabilization Schemes to Speculative Attack," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 91(1), pages 1-38, February.
    2. Wyplosz, Charles, 1986. "Capital controls and balance of payments crises," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 5(2), pages 167-179, June.
    3. Flood, Robert P. & Garber, Peter M., 1984. "Collapsing exchange-rate regimes : Some linear examples," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(1-2), pages 1-13, August.
    4. Obstfeld, Maurice & Rogoff, Kenneth, 1983. "Speculative Hyperinflations in Maximizing Models: Can We Rule Them Out?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 91(4), pages 675-687, August.
    5. Obstfeld, Maurice, 1984. "Balance-of-Payments Crises and Devaluation," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 16(2), pages 208-217, May.
    6. Blanchard, Olivier Jean, 1979. "Speculative bubbles, crashes and rational expectations," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 3(4), pages 387-389.
    7. Salant, Stephen W & Henderson, Dale W, 1978. "Market Anticipations of Government Policies and the Price of Gold," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 86(4), pages 627-648, August.
    8. Pedro Aspe Armella & Rudiger Dornbusch & Maurice Obstfeld, 1983. "Financial Policies and the World Capital Market: The Problem of Latin American Countries," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number arme83-1, April.
    9. Dale W. Henderson & Stephen W. Salant, 1976. "Market anticipations, government policy, and the price of gold," International Finance Discussion Papers 81, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    10. Lizondo, Jose Saul, 1983. "Foreign exchange futures prices under fixed exchange rates," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 14(1-2), pages 69-84, February.
    11. Maurice Obstfeld, 1986. "Speculative Attack and the External Constraint in a Maximizing Model of the Balance of Payments," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 19(1), pages 1-22, February.
    12. Flood, Robert P & Garber, Peter M, 1984. "Gold Monetization and Gold Discipline," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 92(1), pages 90-107, February.
    13. Cass, David & Shell, Karl, 1983. "Do Sunspots Matter?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 91(2), pages 193-227, April.
    14. Douglas W. Diamond & Philip H. Dybvig, 2000. "Bank runs, deposit insurance, and liquidity," Quarterly Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, vol. 24(Win), pages 14-23.
    15. Krugman, Paul, 1979. "A Model of Balance-of-Payments Crises," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 11(3), pages 311-325, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Christian Hellwig, 2002. "Signaling in a Global Game: Coordination and Policy Traps (J.P.E., June 2006)," UCLA Economics Online Papers 209, UCLA Department of Economics.
    2. Piersanti, Giovanni, 2012. "The Macroeconomic Theory of Exchange Rate Crises," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199653126.
    3. Eichengreen, Barry & Rose, Andrew K & Wyplosz, Charles, 1994. "Speculative Attacks on Pegged Exchange Rates: An Empirical Exploration with Special Reference to the European Monetary System," CEPR Discussion Papers 1060, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    4. Maurice Obstfeld, 1986. "Speculative Attack and the External Constraint in a Maximizing Model of the Balance of Payments," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 19(1), pages 1-22, February.
    5. James B. Bullard, 1991. "Collapsing exchange rate regimes: a reinterpretation," Working Papers 1991-003, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
    6. Eijffinger Sylvester C. W. & Goderis Benedikt, 2007. "Currency Crises, Monetary Policy and Corporate Balance Sheets," German Economic Review, De Gruyter, vol. 8(3), pages 309-343, August.
    7. Stijn Claessens & M. Ayhan Kose, 2013. "Financial Crises: Explanations, Types and Implications," CAMA Working Papers 2013-06, Centre for Applied Macroeconomic Analysis, Crawford School of Public Policy, The Australian National University.
    8. Pastine, Ivan, 2002. "Speculation and the decision to abandon a fixed exchange rate regime," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 57(1), pages 197-229, June.
    9. Buiter, Willem H., 1986. "A Gold Standard Isn't Viable Unless Supported by Sufficiently Flexible Monetary and Fiscal Policy," CEPR Discussion Papers 125, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    10. Morris, Stephen & Shin, Hyun Song, 1998. "A Theory of the Onset of Currency Attacks," CEPR Discussion Papers 2025, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    11. Flood, Robert P. & Garber, Peter M. & Kramer, Charles, 1996. "Collapsing exchange rate regimes: Another linear example," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(3-4), pages 223-234, November.
    12. Feltenstein, Andrew & Morris, Stephen, 1988. "Fiscal stabilization and exchange rate instability," Policy Research Working Paper Series 74, The World Bank.
    13. Daniel, Betty C, 2001. "A Fiscal Theory of Currency Crises," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 42(4), pages 969-988, November.
    14. Forsman, Mats-Ola, 2005. "Speculative Attacks on Nordic Exchange-Rates, 1971-1992," Working Papers in Economics 186, University of Gothenburg, Department of Economics.
    15. Axel A. Weber, 1998. "Sources of Currency Crises: An Empirical Analysis," Working Papers 25, Oesterreichische Nationalbank (Austrian Central Bank).
    16. Patrick Artus & Claude Jessua, 1996. "La spéculation," Revue Économique, Programme National Persée, vol. 47(3), pages 409-424.
    17. Giancarlo Marini & Giovanni Piersanti, 2012. "Models of Speculative Attacks and Crashes in International Capital Markets," CEIS Research Paper 245, Tor Vergata University, CEIS, revised 24 Jul 2012.
    18. Carrera, Jose M., 1999. "Speculative attacks to currency target zones: A market microstructure approach," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 6(5), pages 555-582, December.
    19. Barry Eichengreen., 1993. "International Monetary Arrangements for the 21st Century," Center for International and Development Economics Research (CIDER) Working Papers C93-021, University of California at Berkeley.
    20. Cheung, Yin-Wong & Friedman, Daniel, 2009. "Speculative attacks: A laboratory study in continuous time," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 28(6), pages 1064-1082, October.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:aea:aecrev:v:76:y:1986:i:1:p:72-81. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Michael P. Albert). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aeaaaea.html .

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service hosted by the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis . RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.