IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ces/ceswps/_10837.html

Optimal Exchange Rate Policy

Author

Listed:
  • Oleg Itskhoki
  • Dmitry Mukhin

Abstract

We develop a general policy analysis framework for an open economy that features nominal rigidities and financial frictions giving rise to endogenous PPP and UIP deviations. The efficient allocation can be implemented with monetary policy closing the output gap and FX interventions eliminating UIP deviations. When the “natural” real exchange rate is stable, both goals can be achieved solely by monetary policy that fixes the exchange rate — an open-economy divine coincidence. More generally, optimal policy features a managed float/crawling peg complemented with FX forward guidance and macroprudential accumulation of FX reserves, in line with the “fear of floating” observed in the data. Capital controls are not necessary to achieve the frictionless allocation, but they facilitate the extraction of rents in the currency market. Constrained unilateral policies are not optimal from the global perspective, and international cooperation features a complementary use of FX interventions across countries.

Suggested Citation

  • Oleg Itskhoki & Dmitry Mukhin, 2023. "Optimal Exchange Rate Policy," CESifo Working Paper Series 10837, CESifo.
    • Handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_10837
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.ifo.de/DocDL/cesifo1_wp10837.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ethan Ilzetzki & Carmen M Reinhart & Kenneth S Rogoff, 2019. "Exchange Arrangements Entering the Twenty-First Century: Which Anchor will Hold?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 134(2), pages 599-646.
    2. Sy-Ming Guu & Kenneth L. Judd, 2001. "Asymptotic methods for asset market equilibrium analysis," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 18(1), pages 127-157.
    3. Bekaert, Geert, 1995. "The Time Variation of Expected Returns and Volatility in Foreign-Exchange Markets," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 13(4), pages 397-408, October.
    4. Anmol Bhandari & David Evans & Mikhail Golosov & Thomas J. Sargent, 2017. "Fiscal Policy and Debt Management with Incomplete Markets," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 132(2), pages 617-663.
    5. E.O. Svensson, Lars, 1994. "Why exchange rate bands? : Monetary independence in spite of fixed exchange rates," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(1), pages 157-199, February.
    6. 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.
    7. Wallace, Neil, 1981. "A Modigliani-Miller Theorem for Open-Market Operations," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 71(3), pages 267-274, June.
    8. Olivier Blanchard & Francesco Giavazzi, 2002. "Current Account Deficits in the Euro Area: The End of the Feldstein Horioka Puzzle?," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 33(2), pages 147-210.
    9. Marc Flandreau, 1997. "The Gold Standard in Theory and History," Sciences Po Economics Publications (main) hal-03416310, HAL.
    10. Arnaud Costinot & Guido Lorenzoni & Iván Werning, 2014. "A Theory of Capital Controls as Dynamic Terms-of-Trade Manipulation," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 122(1), pages 77-128.
    11. Walker Ray, 2019. "Monetary Policy and the Limits to Arbitrage: Insights from a New Keynesian Preferred Habitat Model," 2019 Meeting Papers 692, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    12. Marc Flandreau, 1997. "The Gold Standard in Theory and History," Post-Print hal-03416310, HAL.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Ohanyan, Narek, 2026. "Country portfolios and optimal monetary policy," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 163(C).
    2. Oleg Itskhoki & Dmitry Mukhin, 2025. "What Drives the Exchange Rate?," IMF Economic Review, Palgrave Macmillan;International Monetary Fund, vol. 73(1), pages 86-117, March.
    3. Zhengyang Jiang, 2024. "Exorbitant Privilege: A Safe-Asset View," CESifo Working Paper Series 11279, CESifo.
    4. Husnu C. Dalgic, 2025. "When Is Liquidity Bad?," CRC TR 224 Discussion Paper Series crctr224_2025_723, University of Bonn and University of Mannheim, Germany.
    5. Yakhin, Yossi, 2025. "Foreign exchange interventions in the New-Keynesian model: Policy, transmission, and welfare," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 151(C).
    6. Han, Bada & Oh, Taehee & Lee, Jangyoun, 2026. "In search of the origin of original sin dissipation," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 162(C).
    7. Carrasco, Alex & Florián Hoyle, David, 2025. "External shocks and FX intervention policy in financially dollarized economies," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).

    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. Etro, Federico, 2017. "Research in economics and macroeconomics," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 71(3), pages 373-383.
    2. Flandreau, Marc R, 2002. ""Water Seeks a Level": Modeling Bimetallic Exchange Rates and the Bimetallic Band," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 34(2), pages 491-519, May.
    3. Jesús Rodríguez López & Hugo Rodríguez Mendizábal, 2003. "How Tight Should Central Bank’s Hands be Tied? Credibility, Volatility and the Optimal Band Width of a Target Zone," Economic Working Papers at Centro de Estudios Andaluces E2003/24, Centro de Estudios Andaluces.
    4. Joshua Aizenman & Brian Pinto, 2013. "Managing Financial Integration and Capital Mobility—Policy Lessons from the Past Two Decades," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 21(4), pages 636-653, September.
    5. Yana Valeryevna Dyomina, 2019. "Cross-Border Capital Flows in East Asia: Impact of Monetary Policy Measures," Spatial Economics=Prostranstvennaya Ekonomika, Economic Research Institute, Far Eastern Branch, Russian Academy of Sciences (Khabarovsk, Russia), issue 3, pages 99-124.
    6. João Sousa Andrade, 2004. "Régimes Monétaires et Théorie Quantitative du Produit Nominal au Portugal (1854 1998)," Notas Económicas, Faculty of Economics, University of Coimbra, issue 20, pages 63-88, December.
    7. repec:ehl:lserod:44725 is not listed on IDEAS
    8. Elias Belessakos & Michael Papaioannou, 1996. "Simple credibility tests of the ERM bands for the pound sterling and the Italian lira," Open Economies Review, Springer, vol. 7(3), pages 219-236, July.
    9. Aleksander Aristovnik, 2005. "Twin Deficits Hypothesis And Horioka-Feldstein Puzzle In Transition Economies," International Finance 0510020, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. Hasse, Jean-Baptiste & Lecourt, Christelle & Siagh, Souhila, 2024. "Setting up a sovereign wealth fund to reduce currency crises," Emerging Markets Review, Elsevier, vol. 62(C).
    11. Emiliano Brancaccio & Nadia Garbellini, 2015. "Currency regime crises, real wages, functional income distribution and production," European Journal of Economics and Economic Policies: Intervention, Edward Elgar Publishing, vol. 12(3), pages 255-276, December.
    12. Afontsev, S., 2025. "International monetary system: Fine-tuning without global reform," Journal of the New Economic Association, New Economic Association, vol. 68(3), pages 269-276.
    13. Matthias Morys, 2006. "Adjustment under the Classical Gold Standard: How costly did the external constraint come to the European periphery?," Working Papers 6009, Economic History Society.
    14. Bédhat Jean-Marc Atsebi & Jean-Louis Combes & Alexandru Minea, 2019. "The trade costs of financial crises," CERDI Working papers halshs-01990335, HAL.
    15. Manuel Amador & Javier Bianchi & Luigi Bocola & Fabrizio Perri, 2020. "Exchange Rate Policies at the Zero Lower Bound," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 87(4), pages 1605-1645.
    16. Gourinchas, Pierre-Olivier & Rey, Hélène, 2014. "External Adjustment, Global Imbalances, Valuation Effects," Handbook of International Economics, in: Gopinath, G. & Helpman, . & Rogoff, K. (ed.), Handbook of International Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 0, pages 585-645, Elsevier.
    17. Weithing Zhang & Thomas Mertens & Tarek Hassan, 2014. "Currency Manipulation," 2014 Meeting Papers 401, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    18. Salim Baz & Lara Cathcart & Alexander Michaelides, 2025. "Lebanon: From Dollars to Lollars," International Finance, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(1), pages 37-63, April.
    19. Binici, Mahir & Das, Mitali, 2021. "Recalibration of capital controls: Evidence from the IMF taxonomy," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 110(C).
    20. Jesús Rodríguez López & Hugo Rodríguez Mendizábal, 2006. "How tight should one's hands be tied? Fear of floating and credibility of exchange regimes," Working Papers 06.03, Universidad Pablo de Olavide, Department of Economics.
    21. Mukti KHETAN & Vijay KUMAR & Kalandi Charan PRADHAN & Mohd. Aziz SHAIKH & Mohd. ARSHAD, 2024. "Forecasting gold price and inflation for India and US: An analysis of ARIMA and Holt Winters models," Theoretical and Applied Economics, Asociatia Generala a Economistilor din Romania / Editura Economica, vol. 0(2(639), S), pages 255-268, Summer.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:ces:ceswps:_10837. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    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 bibliographic 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.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Klaus Wohlrabe (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cesifde.html .

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

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.