Real Exchange Rate Targeting under Imperfect Asset Substitutability

This paper presents a model of an economy that uses nominal exchange rate policy to keep the real exchange rate constant at a certain target level, under an assumption of imperfect asset substitutability. The paper discusses the determinants of inflation under such a policy and examines the effects of exogenous and policy-induced shocks on inflation, the external accounts, and the fiscal accounts. The shocks considered include changes in the real exchange rate target, changes in fiscal policy, changes in foreign interest rates, and open market sales of public sector domestic bonds.

Contractionary Devaluation in Developing Countries: An Analytical Overview

The growing literature on whether devaluation has contractionary effects on output in developing countries is evaluated. The paper explores links between the exchange rate and real output within a unified, fairly general analytical framework that incorporates several of the developing country features cited in the literature. The analysis suggests that many of the arguments on both sides of the debate about contractionary devaluation require modification, that some potential effects have been ignored, and that the direction of the impact effects of devaluation on real output is ambiguous on analytical grounds.

The Currency Composition of Foreign Exchange Reserves

Determinants of the currency composition of foreign exchange reserves are examined for both industrial and developing countries. Empirical results indicate that the currency composition of reserves during the period 1976-85 has been influenced by each country's exchange rate arrangements, trade flows with reserve-currency countries, and the currency in which its debt service payments are denominated. The evidence suggests that managing the currency composition of a country's net foreign asset position is done more cheaply by altering the currency of denomination of assets and liabilities that are not held as reserve assets.

The Long-Run Effects of Depreciation of The Dollar on Sectoral Output

Almost all previous research that investigated the impact of currency depreciation on domestic production relied on an aggregate measure of total output, i.e. GDP. In this paper we investigate the long-run relation between the exchange value of the dollar and production in eight different sectors of the U.S. economy by the means of cointegration analysis. For most sectors we find no evidence of a long-run relation between the value of the dollar and sectoral output. [F31]