Proposed strategy for a regional exchange rate arrangement in post-crisis East Asia

After discussing major conceptual, and empirical issues relevant to the exchange rate policies of East Asian countries, the authors propose a regional exchange rate arrangement designed to promote intra-regional exchange rate stability, and regional economic growth. They argue that: 1) For developing countries, exchange rate volatility tends to significantly hurt trade and investment, making it inadvisable to adopt a system of freely floating exchange rates. 2) Given the high share of intra-regional trade, and the similarity of trade composition in East Asia, exchange rate policy should be directed toward maintaining intra-regional exchange rate stability, to promote trade, investment, and economic growth. 3) the current policy of maintaining exchange rate stability against U.S. dollar as an informal, uncoordinated mechanisms for ensuring intra-regional exchange rate stability is sub-optimal. A pragmatic policy option - conducive to a more robust framework for cooperation in monetary, and exchange rate policy - wold be a coordinated action to shift the target of nominal exchange rate stability, to a basket of tri-polar currencies (the U.S. dollar, the Japanese yen, and the Euro). This alternative would better reflect the region's diverse structure of trade, and foreign direct investment.The authors envision no rigid peg. Instead, at least initially, each country could choose its own formal exchange rate arrangement - be it currency board, a crawling peg, or a basket peg with wide margins. At times of crisis, the peg might be temporarily suspended, subject to the rule that the exchange rate would be restored to the original level as soon as practical. Only in extreme circumstances, would the level be adjusted to reflect new equilibrium conditions.Environmental Economics&Policies,Economic Stabilization,Macroeconomic Management,Fiscal&Monetary Policy,Economic Theory&Research

Assessing Co-ordinated Asian Exchange Rate Regimes

This study assesses alternative Asian exchange rate regimes and finds short- and long-run currency dynamics more conducive to the possibility of introducing a common peg based on a basket of the European euro, the United States dollar and the Japanese yen than the alternative of re-introducing a United States dollar peg exchange rate regime. Exchange rate systems of 3- 4- and 5- Asian currencies are examined and the dynamics in a set of 4 European currencies prior to the introduction of the Euro provides benchmark evidence. The evidence for an Asian basket peg regime is strengthened when, unlike in prior studies, the long-run parameters are estimated while accounting for generalised autoregressive conditional heteroscedasticity effects.Exchange Rate Regimes, Asia, Currency Pegs, Basket Exchange Rates

RMB Internationalisation and Currency Co-operation in East Asia

This paper scrutinises the state of RMB internationalisation and its likely progress over the coming years and discusses its implications for currency co-operation in East Asia. As part of its internationalisation, the RMB is gradually delinked from the dollar, which will effectively put an end to the East Asian dollar standard that has shaped the region's financial architecture over the last three decades and that has provided a relatively high degree of intra-regional exchange rate stability. Because of the close trade and investment ties that have developed across the region, the East Asian countries, especially the ASEAN countries which are striving to create an ASEAN Economic Community, will continue to manage their exchange rates and stabilise their currencies against one another to facilitate cross-border investment and commerce. But instead of a replacing of the dollar standard with an RMB standard we are likely to see some rather loose and informal exchange rate co-operation in East Asia based on currency baskets, with China herself moving towards a managed exchange rate system guided by a currency basket

Debt, Growth, and Poverty in the International Monetary System

This paper explores the relationship between debt, growth, and poverty and the international monetary system. With a well-functioning international monetary system, economic policy works well, instruments are assigned to targets appropriately, and discipline is maintained. The fixed exchange rate is contrasted with alternative monetary rules. The monetary rule is the weakest system; monetary targeting has failed in every country in which it has been tried. An advantage of the fixed exchange rate is the clue it provides to the price level, interest rate, and future monetary policy. Other things being equal, the use of a currencies basket is inferior to a single currency peg, while a freely floating exchange rate system puts itself at the mercy of speculators. The paper points out the conditions for a successful currency area as a consensus on a common inflation rate; a common basket of goods with which to measure inflation; exchange rate that must be locked; member countries must adopt a common monetary policy; and a formula must be devised for distributing and using the seigniorage profits from monetary expansion. There is a need to study the possibility of an Asian currency area and the links between the APEC and the SAARC. Regular and mutual surveillance on monetary, fiscal, and exchange rate convergence, and policies that minimise exchange rate uncertainty and work towards a currency club area based on a common anchor— initially the dollar—are needed. Setting up of an Asian Monetary Fund is also suggested, one that is closely modelled on the original IMF articles of agreement and will provide an anchored fixed exchange rate system.