Destabilizing effects of exchange-rate escape clauses

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Obstfeld, M
• 署名单位: National Bureau of Economic Research; Centre for Economic Policy Research - UK
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0022-1996
• DOI: 10.1016/S0022-1996(96)01460-2
• 发表日期: 1997
• 页码: 61-77
• 关键词: realignment; escape clause; credibility; speculative attack; European monetary system

摘要

This paper studies policy rules with escape clauses, analyzing as an example fixed exchange rate systems that allow member countries the freedom to realign in periods of stress. While well-designed, escape-clause rules can raise society's welfare in principle, limited credibility makes it difficult to implement such rules in practice. An EMS-type institution that imposes political costs on policymakers who realign may raise welfare, but can also produce equilibria far inferior to an irrevocably fixed exchange rate. Switches between multiple equilibria may have the character of sudden speculative attacks. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science B.V.