Coordination and Policy Traps (original) (raw)
Related papers
2008
This paper studies defense policies in a global-game model of speculative currency attacks. Although the signaling role of policy interventions sustains multiple equilibria, a number of novel predictions emerge which are robust across all equilibria. (i) The central bank intervenes by raising domestic interest rates, or otherwise raising the cost of speculation, only when the value it assigns to defending the peg—its “type”—is intermediate. (ii) Devaluation occurs only for low types. (iii) The set of types who intervene shrinks with the precision of market information. (iv) A unique equilibrium policy survives in the limit as the noise in market information vanishes, whereas the devaluation outcome remains indeterminate. (v) The payoff of the central bank is monotonic in its type. (vi) The option to intervene can be harmful only for sufficiently strong types; and when this happens, weak types are necessarily better off. While these predictions seem reasonable, none of them would hav...
The role of a large trader in a dynamic currency attack model
Journal of Financial Intermediation, 2014
This paper studies the role of a large trader in a dynamic currency attack model based on Abreu and Brunnermeier (2003), who study stock market bubbles and crashes in a dynamic model with a continuum of rational small traders. We introduce a large trader into their model and apply it to currency attacks. In an attack against a fixed exchange rate regime with a gradually overvalued currency, traders lack common knowledge about the time when the overvaluation starts and need to coordinate to break a peg. Both the inability of traders to synchronize their attack and their incentive to time the collapse of the regime lead to the persistent overvaluation of the currency. We find that the presence of a large trader with perfect information induces small traders to attack sooner and leads to an accelerated collapse of the regime. But the presence of a large trader with noisy information may delay the collapse of the regime ex post. Moreover, a large trader with precise information tends to be at the rear of an attack. With noisy information, he could attack earlier or later than small traders. In both cases, the large trader affects market dynamics of the attack substantially.
Defending Against Speculative Attacks I A Hybrid Model of Exchange Market Pressure and Crises
Social Science Research Network, 2008
While virtually all currency crisis models recognise that the fate of a currency peg depends on how tenaciously policy makers defend it, they seldom model how this is done. We incorporate the mechanics of speculation and the interest rate defence against it in the model of Morris and Shin (American Economic Review 88, 1998). Our model captures that the interest rate defence reduces speculators' profits and thus postpones the crisis. It predicts that well before the fall of a currency interest rates are increased to offset the buildup of exchange market pressure, and this then unravels in a sharp depreciation. This pattern is at odds with predictions of standard models, but we show that it fits well with reality.
The Choice of Exchange-Rate Regime and Speculative Attacks
Journal of the European Economic Association, 2004
We develop a framework that makes it possible to study, for the first time, the strategic interaction between the ex ante choice of exchange-rate regime and the likelihood of ex post currency attacks. The optimal regime is determined by a policymaker who trades off the loss from nominal exchange-rate uncertainty against the cost of adopting a given regime. This cost increases, in turn, with the fraction of speculators who attack the local currency. Searching for the optimal regime within the class of exchange-rate bands, we show that the optimal regime can be either a peg (a zero-width band), a free float (an infinite-width band), or a nondegenerate band of finite width. We study the effect of several factors on the optimal regime and on the probability of currency attacks. In particular, we show that a Tobin tax induces policymakers to set less flexible regimes. In our model, this generates an increase in the probability of currency attacks.
Defending against speculative attacks: A hybrid model of exchange market pressure and crises
2008
While virtually all currency crisis models recognise that the fate of a currency peg depends on how tenaciously policy makers defend it, they seldom model how this is done. We incorporate themechanics of speculation and the interest rate defence against it in the model of Morris and Shin (American Economic Review 88, 1998). Our model captures that the interest rate
Speculative Attacks and the Dynamics of Exchange Rates
This paper examines the issue of speculative attacks on the exchange rate in an economy in which. following the attack the government allows the exchange rate to float for a limited period, before repegging it at a higher, sustainable, level. We highlight the tradeoffs between the length of the floating rate period and the timing of the speculative attack, and the implied consequences for the time paths of the exchange rate and consumption. By letting the exchange rate float for an appropriate period, the exchange rate crisis can be delayed for a maximum period of time, although delaying the crisis as long as possible is non-optimal. In some respects our results are qualitatively similar to earlier results based on non-optimizing models, although employing a rational intertemporal optimizing framework substantially enhances our understanding of the determinants of the crises.
Central bank intervention with limited arbitrage
International Journal of Finance & Economics, 2007
pointed out some of the practical and theoretical problems associated with assuming that rational risk-arbitrage would quickly drive asset prices back to long-run equilibrium. In particular, they showed that the possibility that asset price disequilibrium would worsen, before being corrected, tends to limit rational speculators. Uniquely, showed that "performance-based asset management" would tend to reduce risk-arbitrage when it is needed most, when asset prices are furthest from equilibrium. We analyze a generalized Shleifer and Vishny (1997) model for central bank intervention. We show that increasing availability of arbitrage capital has a pronounced effect on the dynamic intervention strategy of the central bank. Intervention is reduced during periods of moderate misalignment and amplified at times of extreme misalignment. This pattern is consistent with empirical observation. The views expressed are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis or the Federal Reserve System.