Exchange Rate Volatility and the Credit Channel in Emerging Markets: A Vertical Perspective

Firms in emerging markets are exposed to severe financial frictions and credit constraints that are exacerbated by the sudden stop of capital inflows. Can monetary policy offset this external credit squeeze? We show that although this may be the case during moderate contractions (or in partial equilibrium), the expansionary effect of monetary policy vanishes during severe external crises. The exchange rate jumps to reduce the dollar value of domestic collateral until equilibrium in domestic financial markets is consistent with the external constraint. An expansionary monetary policy in this context raises the value of domestic collateral, but it exacerbates the exchange rate depreciation (beyond the standard interest parity effect) and has little effect on aggregate activity. However, there is a dynamic linkage between monetary policy and sudden stops. The anticipation of a dogged defense of the exchange rate worsens the consequences of sudden stops by distorting the private sector incentive to take precautions against these shocks. For similar general equilibrium reasons, dollarization of liabilities has limited impact during a sudden stop, but it has significant underinsurance consequences.

A "Vertical" Analysis of Crises and Intervention: Fear of Floating and Ex-ante Problems

Emerging economies are prone to crises triggered by external shocks. During these crises, should the central bank stabilize the currency or domestic interest rates? If the choice is outside the central bank's control, as in a currency board, are there good policy substitutes? We argue that these questions are best analyzed in a 'vertical' framework, where the supply of external funds faced by the country is inelastic during the crisis and monetary policy affects mostly the domestic cost of scarce international liquidity. This is in contrast to the standard 'horizontal' framework where supply is elastic at the (now higher) international interest rate. In this vertical view, raising domestic interest rates during a crisis has relatively limited output consequences, while not doing so causes a sharp exchange rate overshooting. This asymmetry naturally leads to the widely observed fear of floating. However, while this response is ex-post rationalizable, it has negative ex-ante consequences as it exacerbates the structurally insufficient private sector incentives to insure against crises. Ex-ante, optimal monetary policy is countercyclical, and increasingly so as financial development falls. The silver lining for countries with limited financial development that cannot (or should not) overcome this conservative-central-bank time inconsistency problem, is that since the main role of monetary policy in the vertical view is one of incentives, it can be substituted by ex-ante measures to induce the private sector to insure against crises.

International and Domestic Collateral Constraints in a Model of Emerging Market Crises

We build a model of emerging markets crises which features two types of collateral constraints. Firms in a domestic economy have limited borrowing capacity from international investors. They also have limited borrowing capacity with respect to each other. We study how the presence of and changes in these collateral constraints affect financial and real variables. A binding international constraint in the aggregate leads to a sharp rise in interest rates and fire sales of domestic assets, while limited domestic collateral can lead to wasted international collateral. These two collateral constraints can interact in important ways. The first is disintermediation: a fire sale of domestic assets causes banks to fail in their function of reallocating resources across the economy leading to wasted international collateral. The second is a dynamic effect. We show that firms in an economy with limited domestic collateral and a binding international collateral constraint will not adequately precaution against adverse shocks, increasing the severity of these shocks. Our approach is distinctive in that, while much of the literature on the role of financial constraints in macroeconomics draws their insights within either of these collateral deficiencies, we argue that their static and dynamic interactions have important consequences for emerging markets' performance.

Financial System Risk and Flight to Quality

We present a model of flight to quality episodes that emphasizes financial system risk and the Knightian uncertainty surrounding these episodes. In the model, agents are uncertain about the probability distribution of shocks in markets different from theirs, treating such uncertainty as Knightian. Aversion to this uncertainty generates demand for safe financial claims. It also leads agents to require financial intermediaries to lock-up capital to cover their own markets' shocks in a manner that is robust to uncertainty over other markets. These actions are wasteful in the aggregate and can trigger a financial accelerator. A lender of last resort can unlock private capital markets to stabilize the economy during these episodes by committing to intervene should conditions worsen.

Smoothing Sudden Stops

Emerging economies are exposed to severe and sudden shortages of international financial resources. Yet domestic agents seem not to undertake enough precautions against these sudden stops. Following our previous work, we highlight in this paper the central role played by limited domestic development in ex-ante (insurance) and ex-post (spot) financial markets in generating this collective undervaluation of external resources and insurance. Within this structure, this paper studies several canonical policies to counteract the external underinsurance. We do this by first solving for the optimal mechanism given the constraints imposed by limited domestic financial development, and then considering the main - in terms of the model and practical relevance - implementations of this mechanism.

Exchange Rate Volatility and the Credit Channel in Emerging Markets: A Vertical Perspective

Firms in emerging markets are exposed to severe financial frictions and credit constraints, that are exacerbated by the sudden stop of capital inflows. Can monetary policy offset this external credit squeeze? We show that although this may be the case during moderate contractions (or in partial equilibrium), the expansionary effect of monetary policy vanishes during severe external crises. The exchange rate jumps to reduce the dollar value of domestic collateral until equilibrium in domestic financial markets is consistent with the external constraint. An expansionary monetary policy in this context raises the value of domestic collateral but it exacerbates the exchange rate depreciation (beyond the standard interest parity effect) and has little effect on aggregate activity. However there is a dynamic linkage between monetary policy and sudden stops. The anticipation of a dogged defense of the exchange rate worsens the consequences of sudden stops by distorting the private sector incentive to take precautions against these shocks. For similar general equilibrium reasons, dollarization of liabilities has limited impact during a sudden stop, but it has significant underinsurance consequences.

International Liquidity Management: Sterilization Policy in Illiquid Financial Markets

During the booms that precede crises in emerging economies, policy makers often struggle to limit capital flows and their expansionary consequences. The main policy tool for this task is sterilization - essentially a swap of international reserves for public bonds. However, there is an extensive debate on the effectiveness of this policy, with many arguing that it may be counterproductive once the (over-) reaction of the private sector is considered. But what forces account for the private sector's reaction remain largely unexplained. In this paper we provide a model to discuss these issues. We emphasize the international liquidity management aspect of sterilization over the traditional monetary one, a re-focus that seems warranted when the main concern is external crisis prevention. We first demonstrate that policies to smooth expansion in anticipation of downturns can be Pareto improving in economies where domestic financial markets are underdeveloped. We then discuss the implementation and effectiveness of this policy via sterilization. The greatest risk of policy arises in situations where policy is most needed - that is , when financial markets are illiquid. Our mechanism is akin to the implicit bailout' problem, although the central bank acts non-selectively and only intervenes through open markets in our model. Illiquidity replaces corruption and ineptitude. In addition to an appreciation of the currency and the emergence of a quasi-fiscal deficit, the private sector's reaction to sterilization may lead to an expansion rather than the desired contraction in aggregate demand or nontradeables investment and to a bias toward short term capital inflows. The main insights extend to international liquidity management issues more generally.

Fiscal Policy and Financial Depth

Most economists and observers place the lack of fiscal discipline at the core of the recent Argentine crisis. This begs the question of how countries like Belgium or Italy (pre-Maastricht) could run large fiscal deficits and accumulate debts far beyond those of Argentina, without experiencing crises nearly as dramatic as that of Argentina? Why is it that Argentina cannot act like Belgium or Italy and pursue expansionary fiscal policy during downturns? We argue that advanced and emerging economies differ in their financial depth, and show that lack of financial depth constrains fiscal policy in a way that can overturn standard Keynesian fiscal policy prescriptions. We also provide empirical support for this viewpoint. Crowding out is systematically larger in emerging markets than in developed economies. More importantly, this difference is extreme during crises, when the crowding out coefficient exceeds one in emerging market economies.

International Liquidity Illusion: On the Risks of Sterilization

During the booms that precede crises in emerging economies, policymakers often struggle to limit capital flows and their expansionary consequences. The main policy tool for this task is a sterilization of capital inflows - essentially a swap of international reserves for public bonds. Despite its widespread use, sterilization is often criticized for its ineffectiveness and, in extreme cases, its potential backfiring. We argue that these concerns are justified when countries experience occasional external crises and domestic financial markets are illiquid. In this context, while standard Mundell-Fleming considerations may determine the impact of the sterilization on short term peso interest rates, a potentially more powerful and offsetting mechanism is triggered by the anticipated reversal of this policy in the event of an external crisis. If the instruments used in the sterilization are illiquid or result in fiscal deficits that reduce the liquidity of the private sector, then the effective dollar cost of capital, which considers the whole path of expected future rates, may be lowered rather than raised by this policy. Most importantly, this dollar cost of capital reduction does not reflect a true increase in the country's international liquidity during the external crisis and reversal, as would be the case with a successful sterilization, but just a decline in domestic private liquidity. The impact of the latter on relative asset prices creates a sort of 'international liquidity illusion' which fosters rather than depress aggregate demand, and exacerbates short term capital inflows.