Can Domestic Institutions Explain Exchange Rate Regime Choice? The Political Economy of Monetary Institutions Reconsidered

Abstract

Recent articles in International Organization and elsewhere have explored the role of domestic institutions in shaping exchange rate regime choice. These articles use some variation on the information reported by governments to the International Monetary Fund as their dependent variable. Even more recently, new data have become available that reflect actual (de facto) rather than declaratory (de jure) policies with respect to exchange rate regimes. The findings of the domestic institutionalists are significantly weakened, and in some cases reversed, when this more appropriate measure is used to test their claims. These tests cast doubt on whether a domestic institutional focus is the most fruitful way to study exchange rate regimes.Exchange rate choiche, Political Economy of Monetary Institutions