IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/14420.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

A Faith-based Initiative: Does a Flexible Exchange Rate Regime Really Facilitate Current Account Adjustment?

Author

Listed:
  • Menzie D. Chinn
  • Shang-Jin Wei

Abstract

The assertion that a flexible exchange rate regime would facilitate current account adjustment is often repeated in policy circles. In this paper, we compile a data set encompassing data for over 170 countries are included, over the 1971-2005 period, and examine whether the rate of current account reversion depends upon the de facto degree of exchange rate fixity, as measured by two popular indices. We find that there is no strong, robust, or monotonic relationship between exchange rate regime flexibility and the rate of current account reversion, even after accounting for the degree of economic development, the degree of trade and capital account openness. We also find that the endogenous selection of exchange rate regimes does not explain the observed lack of correlation.

Suggested Citation

  • Menzie D. Chinn & Shang-Jin Wei, 2008. "A Faith-based Initiative: Does a Flexible Exchange Rate Regime Really Facilitate Current Account Adjustment?," NBER Working Papers 14420, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:14420
    Note: IFM
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w14420.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Flood, Robert P. & Rose, Andrew K., 1995. "Fixing exchange rates A virtual quest for fundamentals," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 36(1), pages 3-37, August.
    2. Richard H. Clarida, 2007. "G7 Current Account Imbalances: Sustainability and Adjustment," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number clar06-2, July.
    3. Carmen M. Reinhart & Kenneth S. Rogoff, 2004. "The Modern History of Exchange Rate Arrangements: A Reinterpretation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 119(1), pages 1-48.
    4. Chinn, Menzie D. & Ito, Hiro, 2006. "What matters for financial development? Capital controls, institutions, and interactions," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 81(1), pages 163-192, October.
    5. Baxter, Marianne & Stockman, Alan C., 1989. "Business cycles and the exchange-rate regime : Some international evidence," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 23(3), pages 377-400, May.
    6. Jiandong Ju & Shang-Jin Wei, 2007. "Current Account Adjustment: Some New Theory and Evidence," NBER Working Papers 13388, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Olivier Blanchard, 2007. "Current Account Deficits in Rich Countries," IMF Staff Papers, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 54(2), pages 191-219, June.
    8. Menzie Chinn, 2006. "A Primer on Real Effective Exchange Rates: Determinants, Overvaluation, Trade Flows and Competitive Devaluation," Open Economies Review, Springer, vol. 17(1), pages 115-143, January.
    9. Eduardo Levy-Yeyati & Federico Sturzenegger, 2003. "To Float or to Fix: Evidence on the Impact of Exchange Rate Regimes on Growth," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(4), pages 1173-1193, September.
    10. Barry Eichengreen & Raul Razo-Garcia, 2006. "The international monetary system in the last and next 20 years [‘On regional monetary arrangements for ASEAN’]," Economic Policy, CEPR, CESifo, Sciences Po;CES;MSH, vol. 21(47), pages 394-442.
    11. Olivier Blanchard, 2007. "Current Account Deficits in Rich Countries," IMF Staff Papers, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 54(2), pages 191-219, June.
    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. Aghion, Philippe & Bacchetta, Philippe & Rancière, Romain & Rogoff, Kenneth, 2009. "Exchange rate volatility and productivity growth: The role of financial development," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(4), pages 494-513, May.
    2. Levy Yeyati, Eduardo & Sturzenegger, Federico, 2010. "Monetary and Exchange Rate Policies," Handbook of Development Economics, in: Dani Rodrik & Mark Rosenzweig (ed.), Handbook of Development Economics, edition 1, volume 5, chapter 0, pages 4215-4281, Elsevier.
    3. Berger, Helge & Nitsch, Volker, 2014. "Wearing corset, losing shape: The euro's effect on trade imbalances," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 36(1), pages 136-155.
    4. John C. Bluedorn & Christopher Bowdler, 2010. "The Empirics of International Monetary Transmission: Identification and the Impossible Trinity," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 42(4), pages 679-713, June.
    5. Antonio Fat¡S & Ilian Mihov & Andrew K. Rose, 2007. "Quantitative Goals for Monetary Policy," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 39(5), pages 1163-1176, August.
    6. J. Fackler & L. Filer, 2004. "Exchange Rate Targeting and Economic Stabilization," Econometric Society 2004 Far Eastern Meetings 565, Econometric Society.
    7. Tavlas, George & Dellas, Harris & Stockman, Alan C., 2008. "The classification and performance of alternative exchange-rate systems," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 52(6), pages 941-963, August.
    8. Klein, Michael W. & Shambaugh, Jay C., 2008. "The dynamics of exchange rate regimes: Fixes, floats, and flips," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 75(1), pages 70-92, May.
    9. Rodriguez, Cesar M., 2017. "The growth effects of financial openness and exchange rates," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 492-512.
    10. Jong-Wha Lee & Kwanho Shin, 2010. "Exchange Rate Regimes and Economic Linkages," International Economic Journal, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 24(1), pages 1-23.
    11. 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.
    12. Mr. Helge Berger & Volker Nitsch, 2010. "The Euro’s Effecton Trade Imbalances," IMF Working Papers 2010/226, International Monetary Fund.
    13. Broda, Christian, 2006. "Exchange rate regimes and national price levels," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(1), pages 52-81, September.
    14. Alexandre B. Cunha, 2006. "Implications of the Modigliani-Miller Theorem for the Study of Exchange Rate Regimes," IBMEC RJ Economics Discussion Papers 2006-03, Economics Research Group, IBMEC Business School - Rio de Janeiro.
    15. Berg, Kimberly A. & Mark, Nelson C., 2015. "Third-country effects on the exchange rate," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(2), pages 227-243.
    16. Dao Thi-Thieu Ha & Nga Thi Hoang, 2020. "Exchange Rate Regime and Economic Growth in Asia: Convergence or Divergence," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 13(1), pages 1-15, January.
    17. Andrew K. Rose, 2011. "Exchange Rate Regimes in the Modern Era : Fixed, Floating, and Flaky," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 49(3), pages 652-672, September.
    18. Calderón, César & Kubota, Megumi, 2018. "Does higher openness cause more real exchange rate volatility?," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 110(C), pages 176-204.
    19. Fatma Erdem & Erdal Özmen, 2015. "Exchange Rate Regimes and Business Cycles: An Empirical Investigation," Open Economies Review, Springer, vol. 26(5), pages 1041-1058, November.
    20. Rui Mao & Yang Yao, 2016. "Fixed Exchange Rate Regimes, Real Undervaluation, and Economic Growth," Journal of International Commerce, Economics and Policy (JICEP), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 7(02), pages 1-35, June.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • F3 - International Economics - - International Finance

    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:nbr:nberwo:14420. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.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.