Exchange Rate Volatility and Growth in Emerging Europe and East Asia

The paper investigates the impact of exchange rate volatility on growth in Emerging Europe and East Asia. Exchange stability has been argued to affect growth negatively as it deprives countries from the ability to react in a flexible way to asymmetric real shocks and may enhance the probability of speculative capital inflows and overheating. In contrast, exchange rate stability can be argued to affect growth in emerging market economies positively because transaction costs for international trade decline, uncertainty for international capital flows is less and macroeconomic stability is enhanced. Cross country panel estimations provide evidence for a negative impact of exchange rate volatility on growth both in Emerging Europe and East Asia.exchange rate regimes, growth, boom-and-bust cycles, Emerging Europe, East Asia

International Capital Markets and Exchange Rate Stabilization in the CIS

In this paper, we examine the rationale for dollar and euro pegging in Russia and the CIS. We consider macroeconomic stabilization and transaction costs for international trade as rationales for pegging to the euro. Dollarization of international assets and liabilities are examined as determinants of exchange rate stabilization against the dollar. The impact of network externalities from a common anchor for all CIS countries is explored. Tests on de facto exchange rate stabilization reveal that dollar pegging has been pervasive in the CIS.CIS, Exchange Rate Systems

Weak Economy and Strong Currency - The Origins of the Strong Yen in the 1990s

During the 1990’s the Japanese yen proved astonishingly strong despite the persisting recession. This paper tracks the origins of the high yen. It analyses the influence of interest rates, prices and foreign exchange policy on the yen-dollar exchange rate. It comes to the conclusion that real interest differentials can only explain short-term exchange rate changes. Since prices have been exerting their influence on the Japanese currency in the long run, the high yen is explained with deflation. The massive foreign exchange interventions of the 1990’s were only able to stop the appreciation temporarily, if they were unsterilized, but they had no lasting effects.Japan, Yen, Yen/Dollar Exchange Rate, Foreign Exchange Intervention

De jure versus de facto Exchange Rate Stabilization in Central and Eastern Europe

The IMF classifications of the Central and Eastern European (CEE) exchange rate arrange-ments are heterogeneous. While one group of countries reports tight pegs to the euro, a second group seems to have moved toward (more) exchange rate flexibility. Based on the recent dis- cussion about the accuracy of IMF exchange rate arrangement classifications, low- and high-frequency exchange rate stability in Central and Eastern Europe is explored. De facto ex-change rate stabilization is found to be much more prevalent in Central and Eastern Europe than suggested by de jure exchange rate classifications. Most of the CEE countries peg their currencies to the euro, thereby contributing to a growing euro zone. Nevertheless, as exchange rate stabilization against the euro is pursued with different degrees and with different long-term drifts, intra-regional exchange rates are still far from being unified.Foreign Exchange Policy, EMU, Euro Zone, Central and Eastern Europe

Large BCFT moduli in open string field theory

We use the recently constructed solution for marginal deformations by one of the authors, to analytically relate the BCFT modulus (lambda_BCFT) to the coefficient of the boundary marginal field in the solution (lambda_SFT). We explicitly find that the relation is not one to one and the same value of lambda_SFT corresponds to a pair of different lambda_BCFT 's: a "small" one, and a "large" one. The BCFT moduli space is fully covered, but the coefficient of the marginal field in the solution is not a good global coordinate on such a space.Comment: 14 pages, 3 figures. v2: minor notation improvements, version published in JHE

Analytic solution for tachyon condensation in open string field theory

We propose a new basis in Witten's open string field theory, in which the star product simplifies considerably. For a convenient choice of gauge the classical string field equation of motion yields straightforwardly an exact analytic solution that represents the nonperturbative tachyon vacuum. The solution is given in terms of Bernoulli numbers and the equation of motion can be viewed as novel Euler--Ramanujan-type identity. It turns out that the solution is the Euler--Maclaurin asymptotic expansion of a sum over wedge states with certain insertions. This new form is fully regular from the point of view of level truncation. By computing the energy difference between the perturbative and nonperturbative vacua, we prove analytically Sen's first conjecture.Comment: 60 pages, 4 figures, v2: typos corrected, references adde

On Multibrane Solutions in Open String Field Theory

Existence of open string field theory solutions describing configurations of multiple space-filling D-branes has been a subject of numerous speculations for quite some time. In this talk we present some new results giving further support to these ideas.Comment: 8 pages. Contribution to the proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on String Field Theory and Related Aspects (SFT 2010), Kyoto, Japan, 18-22 Oct 201

Termination Proofs in the Dependency Pair Framework May Induce Multiple Recursive Derivational Complexity

We study the derivational complexity of rewrite systems whose termination is provable in the dependency pair framework using the processors for reduction pairs, dependency graphs, or the subterm criterion. We show that the derivational complexity of such systems is bounded by a multiple recursive function, provided the derivational complexity induced by the employed base techniques is at most multiple recursive. Moreover we show that this upper bound is tight.Comment: 22 pages, extended conference versio