Reforming the International Monetary System in the 1970s and 2000s: Would an SDR Substitution Account Have Worked

This paper analyzes the discussion of a substitution account in the 1970s and how the account might have performed had it been agreed in 1980. The substitution account would have allowed central banks to diversify away from the dollar into the IMF’s Special Drawing Right (SDR), comprised of US dollar, Deutschmark, French franc (later euro), Japanese yen and British pound, through transactions conducted off the market. The account’s dollar assets could fall short of the value of its SDR liabilities, and hedging would have defeated the purpose of preventing dollar sales. In the event, negotiators were unable to agree on how to distribute the open-ended cost of covering any shortfall if the dollar’s depreciation were to exceed the value of any cumulative interest rate premium on the dollar. As it turned out, the substitution account would have encountered solvency problems had the US dollar return been based on US treasury bill yields, even if a substantial fraction of the IMF’s gold had been devoted to meet the shortfall at recent high prices for gold. However, had the US dollar return been based on US treasury bond yields, the substitution account would have been solvent even without any gold backing

Living with flexible exchange rates:

This overview paper examines two main issues. The first is why the exchange rate matters, especially for emerging market economies. The second is under what circumstances and how countries have dealt with the challenges posed by the exchange rate in recent years in the context of inflation targeting. We find that emerging market economies, being more exposed to the influence of the exchange rate, are likely to accord the exchange rate a bigger role in policy assessment and decision-making. However, even with the greater emphasis on the exchange rate, the emerging market economies under review have not acted in contradiction to their announced inflation targets. Furthermore, recent experience shows that having to keep an eye on the exchange rate is also a fact of life in industrial economies, inflation targeting or not.inflation targeting emerging markets exchange rate

Building an integrated capital market in East Asia

This paper takes stock of the state of financial integration in East Asia. It contrasts the international integration of equity markets, the regional integration of the markets for bonds and syndicated loans denominated in US dollars, and the insularity of most local currency bond markets. In the last, it finds that the regional issuance in the Japanese foreign bond ('Samurai') and euroyen markets did not recover from the shocks during and after the Asian financial crisis. However, it finds a strong element of regional integration in the 'Uridashi' market in which Japanese investors have bought relatively large sums of Australian and New Zealand dollar bonds. Regional central banks have sought to jump-start development of domestic bond markets by investing limited amounts of their official foreign exchange reserves in each other's domestic bond markets. The willingness of Japanese investors to take on the currency risk of the Australian and New Zealand dollars offers hope that capital can flow within the region without the vehicle of an extra-regional currency. The largely global integration of East Asian equity markets highlights the risk of opening bond markets to global investors if institutional investors in the region remain sidelined in domestic assets. Without a substantial regional bid for equities, investors in individual economies can end up bearing the brunt of heavy selling by global investors. If institutional investors in the region were able to invest more abroad, they could help lend stability to local bond markets

"Currency intervention and the global portfolio balance effect: Japanese and Swiss lessons, 2003-2004 and 2009-2010"

This paper shows that the Japanese and Swiss foreign exchange interventions in 2003/04 and 2009/10 seem to have lowered long-term interest rates in a range of industrial countries, including Japan and Switzerland. It seems that this decline was triggered by the investment of the intervention funds in US and euro area bonds and that a global portfolio balance effect made this decline in interest rate spread to other markets, thus easing monetary conditions at home and abroad.

Currency intervention and the global portfolio balance effect: Japanese and Swiss lessons, 2003-2004 and 2009-2010

This paper shows that the Japanese and Swiss foreign exchange interventions in 2003/04 and 2009/10 seem to have lowered long-term interest rates in a range of industrial countries, including Japan and Switzerland. It seems that this decline was triggered by the investment of the intervention funds in US and euro area bonds and that a global portfolio balance effect made this decline in interest rate spread to other markets, thus easing monetary conditions at home and abroad.

Renminbising China's Foreign Assets

Since the 2008 global financial crisis, China has rolled out a number of initiatives to actively promote the international role of the renminbi and to denominate more of its international claims away from the US dollar and into the renminbi. This paper discusses the factors shaping the prospects of internationalising the renminbi from the perspective of the currency composition of China’s international assets and liabilities. These factors include, among others, underlying valuation and management of the renminbi.renminbi internationalisation, net international asset position, convertibility, exchange rate uncertainty, dollar peg

Financial openness of China and India: Implications for capital account liberalisation

We gauge the de-facto capital account openness of the Chinese and Indian economies by testing the law of one price on the basis of onshore and offshore price gaps for three key financial instruments. Generally, the three measures show both economies becoming more financially open over time. Over the past decade, the Indian economy on average appears to be more open financially than the Chinese economy, but China seems to be catching up with India in the wake of the global financial crisis. Both have more work to do to open their capital accounts. Our price-based measures suggest strong inward pressure on Chinese money markets, in contrast to the consensus projection that China is likely to experience net private capital outflows when it thoroughly opens up financially. Policymakers need to monitor and to manage the risks along the dynamic path of capital account liberalisation