IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ucb/calbwp/89-119.html

The Comparative Performance of Fixed and Flexible Exchange Rate Regimes: Interwar Evidence

Author

Listed:
  • Barry Eichengreen.

Abstract

This paper examines three interwar exchange rate regimes: the free float of the early 1920s, the fixed rates of 1927-31 and the managed float of the early 1930s. Nominal rates were considerably more variable under free than under managed floating. The reduction in nominal exchange rate variability achieved with the move from free to managed floating was not accompanied by a commensurate fall in exchange rate uncertainty because government policy seems to have been subject to periodic shifts that heightened risk. There was a strong association between nominal and real exchange rate predictability in both the free float of 1922-6 and the managed float of 1932-6. There was no direct correspondence between the degree of exchange rate stability and the volume of international capital flows. Capital controls, which were considerably more prevalent under managed floating than either of the other regimes, provide a major part of the explanation for differences across regimes in the magnitude of real interest differentials.
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

Suggested Citation

  • Barry Eichengreen., 1989. "The Comparative Performance of Fixed and Flexible Exchange Rate Regimes: Interwar Evidence," Economics Working Papers 89-119, University of California at Berkeley.
    • Handle: RePEc:ucb:calbwp:89-119
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://papers.nber.org/papers/W3097
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Richard C. Marston, 1992. "Interest Differentials Under Fixed and Flexible Exchange Rates: The Effects of Capital Controls and Exchange Risk," NBER Working Papers 4053, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Eichengreen, Barry, 1990. "Relaxing the External Constraint: europe in the 1930s," Department of Economics, Working Paper Series qt45x5d198, Department of Economics, Institute for Business and Economic Research, UC Berkeley.
    3. Barry Eichengreen., 1992. "Three Perspectives on the Bretton Woods System," Economics Working Papers 92-191, University of California at Berkeley.
    4. Scott Andrew Urban, 2009. "The Name of the Rose: Classifying 1930s Exchange-Rate Regimes," Economics Series Working Papers Paper 76, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    5. Barry Eichengreen, 1992. "Is Europe an Optimum Currency Area?," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Silvio Borner & Herbert Grubel (ed.), The European Community after 1992, chapter 8, pages 138-161, Palgrave Macmillan.
    6. Richard C. Marston, 1993. "Interest Differentials under Bretton Woods and the Post-Bretton Woods Float: The Effects of Capital Controls and Exchange Risk," NBER Chapters, in: A Retrospective on the Bretton Woods System: Lessons for International Monetary Reform, pages 515-546, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    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:ucb:calbwp:89-119. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Christopher F. Baum (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/debrkus.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.