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The optimal currency for a country is an important topic. While it is difficult to identify the best option overall, for all stakeholders and including political considerations, it is easier to answer the more limited question of the title: Which currency is best for business in a small country? Several kinds of currencies are discussed and three criteria that business companies are interested in are applied. Although there are opposing considerations, the best compromise for business in a small country seems to be a currency board with a fixed exchange rate that can be adapted in case of a crisis. A currency board is also the best protection against speculative attacks. The anchor currency should be that of the largest trading partner, especially if the trade with it is much larger than with all other ones. Die optimale Währung für ein Land ist ein wichtiges Thema. Während es schwierig ist, die beste Option überhaupt zu identifizieren, für alle Stakeholder und unter Einbezug politischer Überlegungen, ist es einfacher die begrenztere Titelfrage zu beantworten: Welche Währung ist am besten für Unternehmen in einem kleinen Land? Dazu werden verschiedenen Arten von Währungen diskutiert und drei Kriterien angewandt, an denen Unternehmen interessiert sind. Obgleich es gegenläufige Überlegungen gibt, scheint der beste Kompromiss für Unternehmen in einem kleinen Land eine devisengesicherte Anbindung an eine Ankerwährung zu sein mit einem festen Wechselkurs und Anpassungsmöglichkeiten im Falle einer Krise. Solch eine Anbindung ist auch der beste Schutz gegen spekulative Angriffe. Die Ankerwährung sollte die Währung des größten Handelspartners sein, insbesondere wenn der Handel mit diesem deutlich größer ist als mit allen anderen.

This paper analyzes the optimal transition of the exchange rate regime in the People's Republic of China (PRC). How the PRC can successfully reach the desired regime - whether a basket peg or floating regime - from the current dollar-peg regime remains a major question. To answer it, we develop a dynamic small open-economy general equilibrium model. We construct four transition policies toward the basket-peg or floating regime and compare the welfare gains of these policies to those of maintaining the dollar-peg regime. Quantitative analysis using PRC data from Q1 1999 to Q4 2010 leads to two conclusions. First, a gradual adjustment toward a basket-peg regime seems the most appropriate option for the PRC, and would minimize the welfare losses associated with a shift in the exchange rate regime. Second, a sudden shift to a basket peg is the second-best solution. This is preferable to a sudden shift to a floating regime, since it would enable the authorities to implement optimal weights efficiently in order to achieve policy goals once a decision has been made to adopt a basket-peg regime.

We study the empirical effects of fiscal policy in Denmark since the adoption of a fixed exchange rate policy in 1982. We demonstrate that fiscal stimulus has a rather large impact on economic activity in the very short run, with a government spending multiplier of 1.3 on impact in our preferred specification. Denmark's fixed exchange rate implies that the nominal interest rate remains fixed after a fiscal expansion, facilitating a substantial impact of the fiscal stimulus on the real economy. On the other hand, the large degree of openness of the Danish economy means that a sizeable share of the fiscal stimulus will be directed towards imported goods. Our results suggest that the 'monetary accomodation channel' dominates the 'leakage effect'. We also find that the effects of fiscal stimulus are very short-lived in Denmark, with the effect on output becoming insignificant after around a year. The fiscal multiplier is above 1 only in the first quarter, and drops to 0.6 one year after the shock. We further demonstrate that the fiscal multiplier is far from constant over time. While the multiplier was below 1 in the 1970's and 1980's, it has been above 1 in the 1990's and the 2000's, when Denmark has had a credibly fixed exchange rate and sound public finances.

Pegging in a coordinated way to a regional basket currency is considered by many as optimal for east-Asian countries. By contrast, according to existing empirical studies, these countries have most often relied on noncooperative United States dollar or G3 pegs. We show for the first time that by the late 1990s, with some reversals, a majority of east-Asian countries had already moved, de facto, away from the dollar peg and started targeting a basket, including east-Asian currencies (an Asian Currency Unit). Common-shock or market-based interpretations of such moves are ruled out since we document that, with few exceptions, countries in the region have in reality stuck to fixed exchange rates. We obtain such results using a Markov-switching estimation benchmarked against Bai-Perron structural break tests for the synthesis model of Frankel and Wei (2007), which augments the inference about currency weights in a basket with the weight on exchange-market pressure. In order to measure the latter, the forward positions of central banks in the foreign exchange market are taken into account.

This paper addresses the issue of international payments in a stock-flow framework, by capturing the interaction between the current account balance and international assets portfolios of domestic and foreign investors. It is argued that the stability of such interaction may be affected by shifts in the preferences of investors, by the relative rate of return of different assets, and - more in general - by institutional settings. The model is then used for policy analysis purposes to derive the conditions for the existence of dynamic equilibria, and if they can be attained, under the assumption of market-distorting policy choices.

Current account deficits in the United States (US) and current account surpluses in East Asia are an enduring part of the global economic landscape. They are supported by low saving in the US and by reserve accumulation in Asia. This paper argues that this strategy is causing macroeconomic problems for the People's Republic of China (PRC). Inflation is rising, and interest rates are set too low because the yuan is closely linked to the US dollar. Low interest rates have fueled overinvestment in physical capital and rising real estate prices. They also cause savers to earn negative returns on their bank deposits. Greater exchange rate flexibility would allow more decoupling between the PRC's interest rates and US interest rates, helping the People's Bank of China to implement monetary policy that is appropriate for the PRC. Since exchange rate appreciations would be contractionary for the PRC, they should be combined with domestic absorption-increasing policies such as spending on education, health care, and urban transportation. Interest rates and exchange rates that are more determined by market forces would also help the PRC to move away from an overly capital-intensive growth path to one that is more beneficial for smaller firms and ordinary workers.

This paper investigates to what extent Chinese monetary policy is constrained by the dollar peg. To this end, we use a cointegration framework to examine whether Chinese interest rates are driven by the Fed's policy. In a second step, we estimate a monetary model for China, in which we include also other monetary policy tools besides the central bank interest rate, namely reserve requirement ratios and open market operations. Our results suggest China has been relatively successful in isolating its monetary policy from the US policy and that the interest rate tool has not been effectively made use of. We therefore conclude that by employing capital controls and relying on other instruments than the interest rate China has been able to exert relatively autonomous monetary policy.

On 19 June 2010 the Chinese authorities announced that the renminbi (RMB) was henceforth to be pegged to a currency basket. Yet, it has quite closely followed the USD, though having appreciated by 2.7 % by the time of writing. At the G20 Seoul Summit on 11-12 November 2010, China committed to further reform the RMB exchange rate regime. We discuss here what a genuine basket peg could mean for China, with the view that the weight for the EUR should obviously be significantly increased, the SDR being a strong option for practical implementation. This would also have a positive impact on the EU. China's currency reform has possible implications for its USD-dominated assets. Their reduction could trigger a further depreciation of the USD. The potentially costly consequences call for new rules for the world financial architecture. China's expansion will inevitably lead to a diminishing international role for the USD.

This paper analyzed the impact of United States (US) monetary shocks on the economies of selected East Asian countries using a structural vector autoregression model. We found that the impacts of the US monetary shocks on domestic interest rates and exchange rates contradict conventional wisdom. The conventional exchange rate channel is unlikely to play much role in the transmission of US monetary policy shocks to floating exchange rate regimes in East Asian countries, excluding Japan. In these countries, the domestic interest rate responds strongly to US interest rate changes, largely by authorities giving up monetary autonomy due to fear of floating. On the other hand, the domestic interest rate does not respond much to changes in US rates in the countries with a fixed exchange rate regime and capital account restrictions, such as the People's Republic of China and Malaysia. This may suggest that the countries with a fixed exchange rate regime enjoy a higher degree of monetary autonomy, probably with the help of capital account restrictions.

The approach is based on the finding that new generations of currency crises theories always had developed ex post after popular currency crises. Discussing the main theories of currency crises shows their disparity: The First Generation of currency crises models argues based on the assumption of a chronic budget deficit that is being monetized by the domestic central bank. The result is a trade-off between an expansionary monetary policy that is focused on the internal economic balance and a fixed exchange rate which is depending on the rules of interest parity and purchasing power parity. This imbalance inevitably results in a currency crisis. Altogether, this theory argues with a disrupted external balance on the foreign exchange market. Second Generation currency crises models on the other side focus on the internal macroeconomic balance. The stability of a fixed exchange rate is depending on the economic benefit of the exchange rate system in relation to the social costs of maintaining it. As soon as social costs are increasing and showing up in deteriorating fundamentals, this leads to a speculative attack on the fixed exchange rate system. The term Third Generation of currency crises finally summarizes a variety of currency crises theories. These are also arguing psychologically to explain phenomena as contagion and spill-over effects to rationalize crises detached from the fundamental situation. Apart from the apparent inconsistency of the main theories of currency crises, a further observation is that these explanations focus on the crisis country only while international monetary transmission effects are left out of consideration. These however are a central parameter for the stability of fixed exchange rate systems, in exchange rate theory as well as in empirical observations. Altogether, these findings provide the motivation for developing a theoretical approach which integrates the main elements of the different generations of currency crises theories and which integrates international monetary transmission. Therefore a macroeconomic approach is chosen applying the concept of the Monetary Conditions Index (MCI), a linear combination of the real interest rate and the real exchange rate. This index firstly is extended for international monetary influences and called MCIfix. MCIfix illustrates the monetary conditions required for the stability of a fixed exchange rate system. The central assumption of this concept is that the uncovered interest parity is maintained. The main conclusion is that the MCIfix only depends on exogenous parameters. In a second step, the analysis integrates the monetary policy requirements for achieving an internal macroeconomic stability. By minimizing a loss function of social welfare, a MCI is derived which pictures the economically optimal monetary policy MCIopt. Instability in a fixed exchange rate system occurs as soon as the monetary conditions for an internal and external balance are deviating. For discussing macroeconomic imbalances, the central parameters determining the MCIfix (and therefore the relation of MCIfix to MCIopt) are discussed: the real interest rate of the anchor country, the real effective exchange rate and a risk premium. Applying this theory framework, four constellations are discussed where MCIfix and MCIopt fall apart in order to show the central bank’s possibilities for reacting and the consequences of that behaviour. The discussion shows that the integrative approach manages to incorporate the central elements of traditional currency crises theories and that it includes international monetary transmission instead of reducing the discussion on an inconsistent domestic monetary policy. The theory framework for fixed exchange rates is finally applied in four case studies: the currency crises in Argentina, the crisis in the Czech Republic, the Asian currency crisis and the crisis of the European Monetary System. The case studies show that the developed monetary framework achieves integration of different generations of crises theories and that the monetary policy of the anchor country plays a decisive role in destabilising fixed exchange rate systems., Die Arbeit baut auf dem Befund auf, dass zur Erklärung von Währungskrisen stets im Nachgang bedeutender Krisen eine neue Generation wissenschaftlicher Theorien entwickelt wurde. Eine Diskussion der bedeutendsten Theorien verdeutlicht, dass diese in ihrer Argumentation untereinander und in sich inkonsistent sind: Modelle Erster Generation bauen auf der Annahme chronischer Budgetdefizite auf, die die heimische Notenbank monetarisiert. Dieser Zielkonflikt zwischen einer expansiven, binnenwirtschaftlich ausgerichteten Geldpolitik und dem den Gesetzen der Zins- und Kaufkraftparität unterliegenden Wechselkursziel mündet unvermeidlich in einer Währungskrise. Die Theorie bezieht sich demnach klar auf das externe Gleichgewicht am Devisenmarkt. Währungskrisenmodelle der Zweiten Generation stellen dagegen das interne, binnenwirtschaftliche Gleichgewicht in den Mittelpunkt. Der Erfolg eines Wechselkurszieles hängt hiernach vom Nutzen des Festkurssystems in Relation zu den Kosten seiner Verteidigung ab. Steigen die sozialen Kosten in Form konjunktureller Belastungen, führt dies ab einem bestimmten Level über antizipierende Markterwartungen zu einer spekulativen Attacke auf den Festkurs. Unter dem Obergriff der Dritten Generation von Krisenmodellen schließlich werden verschiedene Modelle zusammengefasst, die psychologische Erklärungsansätze miteinbeziehen, um Phänomene wie Ansteckungseffekte zu erklären. Dadurch können Krisenentwicklungen losgelöst von der jeweiligen Fundamentaldatenlage rationalisiert werden. Neben der offensichtlichen Inkonsistenz der zentralen Argumente der jeweiligen Theorien ist eine weitere Beobachtung, dass die Erklärungen jeweils im betroffenen Land ansetzen, während eine grenzüberschreitende monetäre Transmission außer Acht gelassen wird. Diese ist jedoch sowohl in der Empirie als auch in der Theorie zu Wechselkurssystemen ein zentraler Einflussfaktor für die Stabilität von Festkurssystemen. Aus diesen Befunden leitet sich die Motivation für die vorliegende Arbeit ab, ein die verschiedenen Krisengenerationen integrierendes theoretisches Rahmenwerk zu entwickeln, in dem grenzüberschreitende monetäre Transmissionseffekte in die Diskussion mit einbezogen werden. Zu diesem Zweck wird ein makroökonomischer Ansatz gewählt, der das Konzept des Monetary Conditions Index (MCI) anwendet, einer Linearkombination aus Realzins und realem Wechselkurs. Dieser Index wird zum einen um internationale monetäre Einflüsse erweitert zu einem MCIfix, der die monetären Anforderungen an ein funktionierendes Festkurssystem wiederspiegelt. Zentrale Annahme hierfür ist die Einhaltung der ungedeckten Zinsparität. Die wesentliche Erkenntnis ist, dass alle Determinanten des MCIfix für die Notenbank exogene Parameter sind. In einem zweiten Schritt bezieht die Arbeit die binnenwirtschaftlichen Anforderungen einer Volkswirtschaft an die Geldpolitik in die Analyse ein. Dazu wird durch Minimierung einer Verlustfunktion an gesellschaftlicher Wohlfahrt ein MCI abgeleitet, der die binnenwirtschaftlich optimale Geldpolitik abbildet (MCIopt). Instabilität des Festkurssystems droht, sobald die geldpolitischen Bedingungen für das binnenwirtschaftliche und außenwirtschaftliche Gleichgewicht auseinanderfallen. Zur Diskussion makroökonomischer Ungleichgewichte werden die entscheidenden Parameter, die den MCIfix und damit die Relation von MCIfix und MCIopt bestimmen, diskutiert: der Realzins des Ankerlandes, der reale effektive Wechselkurs und eine Risikoprämie. Mit diesem Theorie-Instrumentarium stellt die Arbeit dann vier Konstellationen dar, in denen MCIfix und MCIopt auseinanderfallen, und diskutiert mögliche Verhaltensweisen der Notenbank und deren Folgen. Der MCI, für den sich die Notenbank tatsächlich entscheidet, wird als MCIact bezeichnet. Jeder der vier Fälle endet in einer Währungskrise. Es zeigt sich in der Diskussion, dass der hier verwendete Ansatz die zentralen Elemente traditioneller Krisentheorien integriert und die Diskussion monetärer Einflüsse von außen zulässt, anstatt ausschließlich von einem ursächlichen Verschulden der heimischen Notenbank auszugehen. Das theoretische Modell wird schließlich in vier Fallstudien angewandt: Der Argentinienkrise, dem Zusammenbruch des tschechischen Währungsregimes, der Asienkrise und der Krise des Europäischen Währungssystems. Die Fallstudien zeigen, dass sich mit dem entwickelten Modellrahmen Krisen verschiedener Generationen abbilden lassen und die Geldpolitik des Ankerlandes eine zentrale Rolle bei einer Destabilisierung eines Festkurssystems spielt.

This paper examines the alternative exchange rate regimes and their feasibility to be applied in Albania in medium term. In all empirical work done until now is been found a very low relationship between money and inflation in Albania before and after using the indirect instruments of monetary control. As a result, the motivation for finding other strategies for monetary policy and exchange rate policy is strong and has opened the debate of practitioners in this field. We argue that moving from freely floating exchange rate regime and informal IT strategy in formal IT strategy would be a more preferable strategy that will deal better with the fragile sustainability of current account deficit in Albania but not without problems to be applied.

We compare the duration and performance of different monetary regimes, especially the contrast between countries those that fix exchange rates and those that target inflation. Inflation targeting is a more durable policy; no country has yet been forced to abandon an inflation target, while many have abandoned fixed exchange rates. Indeed, even though inflation targeting began only in 1990, the duration of inflation targeting regimes is at least as long as, or longer than all alternative monetary regimes for comparable countries. Regime duration also matters in monetary policy; older regimes are typically more successful than younger ones in achieving low inflation.

The impact on central macroeconomic variables from changes in the monetary-policy regime in the OECD countries in the period 1970-2005 is estimated using the difference-in-difference method. We find that both shifts to a fixed-exchange-rate policy and to inflation targeting have led to a decline in inflation beyond the global trend in the following years. Furthermore, we find a significant reduction in the volatilities in both inflation and output-gap, beyond the global trend, after the adoption of a consistent fixed-exchange-rate policy, while no such effect can be found from a move to inflation targeting. The results are robust to several changes in the classification of the individual countries. In important respects, the results are at odds with recent literature on monetary policy and inflation targeting. This raises some questions: Does the exchange rate in practice absorb or create shocks? Should the role of fiscal policy be reconsidered? Are the concepts of robustness and optimality inadequately mixed? The answers can hopefully be found via future research.

We establish a dynamic currency attack model in the presence of a large player (LP) based on Abreu and Brunnermeier (2003), which differs from most existing one-period static currency attack models. In an attack on a fixed exchange rate regime with a gradually overvaluing currency, both the inability of speculators 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 an LP, who is defined as a speculator with more wealth and superior information, can accelerate or delay the collapse of the regime, depending on his incentives to preempt other speculators or to "ride the overvaluation". When an LP's incentive to preempt other speculators is dominant, the presence of an LP will accelerate the collapse of the regime. However, when an LP's incentive to "ride the overvaluation" is dominant, the presence of an LP will delay the collapse of the regime. The latter case provides valuable insights into the role that LP's play in currency attacks: It differs from the usual perception that the presence of LPs will facilitate arbitrage in an asset market and alleviate asset mispricing due to their capability and willingness to arbitrage.

This paper provides an analysis of Keynes's original Bancor proposal as well as more recent proposals for fixed exchange rates. We argue that these schemes fail to pay due attention to the importance of capital movements in today's economy, and that they implicitly adopt an unsatisfactory notion of money as a mere medium of exchange. We develop an alternative approach to money based on the notion of currency sovereignty. As currency sovereignty implies the ability of a country to implement monetary and fiscal policies independently, we argue that it is necessarily contingent on a country's adoption of floating exchange rates. As illustrations of the problems created for domestic policy by the adoption of fixed exchange rates, we briefly look at the recent Argentinean and European experiences. We take these as telling examples of the high costs of giving up sovereignty (Argentina and the European countries of the EMU) and the benefits of regaining it (Argentina). A regime of more flexible exchange rates would have likely produced a more viable and dynamic European economic system, one in which each individual country could have adopted and implemented a mix of fiscal and monetary policies more suitable to its specific economic, social, and political context. Alternatively, the euro area will have to create a fiscal authority on par with that of the U.S. Treasury, which means surrendering national authority to a central governmentan unlikely possibility in today's political climate. We conclude by pointing out some of the advantages of floating exchange rates, but also stress that such a regime should not be regarded as a sort of panacea. It is a necessary condition if a country is to retain its sovereignty and the power to implement autonomous economic policies, but it is not a sufficient condition for guaranteeing that such policies actually be aimed at providing higher levels of employment and welfare.

In economic discussions, currency board systems are frequently described as arrangements with self-binding character to the monetary authorities by their strict rules and establishments by law. Hard pegs and especially currency boards are often seen as remedies to overcome economic and financial turmoils and to return to low inflation. A sustainable debt level closely linked to a disciplined fiscal policy is, however, a premise for medium-term success. We show in a two-period model that the choice of a currency board can increase fiscal discipline compared to a standard peg regime. We derive, furthermore, the conditions for a currency boards to gain a stability advantage compared to a common peg system.

This paper performs a welfare analysis based on the hypothetical scenario that Denmark gave up its peg and started conducting monetary policy according to a Taylor rule. For this we rely on a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model for a small open economy that was estimated on Danish data using Bayesian methods. We obtain the result that the gain in welfare is equivalent to a permanent increase of around 0.8 pct in the level of consumption. Examining a range of alternative scenarios does not change this conclusion, unless we assume a degree of policy errors under the Taylor rule that is substantially larger than those estimated by other studies.

We decompose the Danish business cycle into ten structural shocks using an open-economy DSGE model with infrequent determination of prices and wages which we estimate with Bayesian techniques. Consistent with the Danish monetary policy regime, we formulate an imperfect peg on the foreign exchange rate and analyse the resulting monetary transmission mechanism. We find that the Danish business cycle is dominated by stochastic movements in the labour supply in the long term, while demand shocks play a major role in the short term. Remarkably, the role of technology is negligible, and foreign factors only contribute little to the Danish business cycle, especially in the long term. With respect to the estimation, we generally find believable estimates although the degree of price stickiness is remarkably high.

Despite the fact that Argentina has been suffering from a recession for years, the timing and severity of the recent currency crisis surprised most observers. This paper analyzes the role of fundamentals and self-fulfilling speculation in the Argentinean crisis. Arguing within a theoretical model of a fixed exchange rate system that allows for multiple equilibria, we show that the crisis, while being associated with weak and deteriorating fundamentals, cannot be explained by these macroeconomic factors alone. Estimating a univariate Markovswitching model, this paper shows that shifts in agents? beliefs did indeed also play a crucial role.

According to the classical view, an economy's lender of last resort should be its central bank. For brief periods of time, the bank might suspend convertibility in order to provide the liquidity needed to support the domestic credit market. Recent experience of financial crises demonstrates the conflict between maintaining a fixed exchange rate and serving as a lender of last resort. The lesson of Sweden's history of crises under the classical specie standard is that a transitional, capital importing economy has to pay closer attention to the specie standard rules than do capital exporting economies. While the Swedish central bank, for a limited time, could support the credit market within the limits of the specie standard, if the crises persisted support mechanisms other than abandoning convertibility were required. The solution adopted was to import high powered money through loans guaranteed by the Swedish State.

This paper studies the role of bank notes issued by the private Enskilda banks in the expansion of the Swedish monetary stock under the classic specie standard maintained during the period 1834-1913. The use of balance sheets has made possible the estimation of more accurate and continuous series of the Swedish money stock and bank reserves. The conclusion of the paper is that the Enskilda banks contributed to Swedish economic expansion and integration, through the provision both of credit and of generally accepted means of payment, beyond what would have been possible for the central bank, constrained as the latter was by specie convertibility requirements. But, the Enskilda banks did not operate according to free banking theory. The re-establishment of the silver standard guaranteed by the central bank was crucial for this process, since it allowed the Enskilda banks to hold central bank notes instead of specie as reserves. The notes issued by the Enskilda banks were accepted as deposits in the banking system but not as reserves. The fact that more Enskilda than Riksbank notes circulated among the public was a result of the law of adverse monetary selection: Gresham's Law.

After massive attacks against the peso in January 2002 the Argentine government abandoned its currency board arrangement. The collapse of the Argentine exchange-rate system initiated a new discussion about the pros and cons of currency boards. Why did the Argentine currency board fail? What does its collapse reveal about the conditions that have to be fulfilled for a currency board to function smoothly? What consequences can be drawn from the Argentine case with regard to the currency boards of countries in central and eastern Europe?

This paper utilizes a very simple model to study the timing and determinants of speculationagainst a fixed exchange rate regime when investors are heterogeneous because of locationaldifferences. Location matters because resident players may incur smaller costs when takinga short-position, are less exposed to exchange rate risk, possess better information quality,have more knowledge about each others information sets, due to asymmetries in tax treatment,or because of the presence of government guarantees. Our model clarifies the respective rolesplayed by local and international investors during episodes of capital flight as well as theresulting room of maneuver for policymakers in emerging markets.

This paper studies Latin American exchange rate regimes since 1960. We model government exchange rate regime choice, constrained by politics. The model implies that the larger the tradable sectors exposed to international competition, the less likely is the maintenance of a fixed exchange rate regime. It also implies that the probability of the maintenance of a fixed exchange rate increases as an election approaches. We evaluate these implications with hazard models to analyze the duration dependence of Latin American exchange rate arrangements from 1960 to 1994. We find substantial empirical evidence to support the model. Results are robust to the inclusion of a variety of other economic and political variables, to different time and country samples, and to different definitions of regime arrangement. Controlling for economic factors, a one percentage point increase in the size of the manufacturing sector is associated with a reduction of six months in the longevity of a country?s currency peg. An impending election increases the conditional likelihood of staying on a peg by about 8 percent, while the aftershock of an election conversely increases the conditional probability of going off a peg by 4 percent.

International investors' enthusiasm with respect to growth prospects in Southeast Asia has been followed by panic. Both the outstanding economic performance of Southeast Asian economies and their ability to master adjustment challenges had led most observers of these economies to the conclusion that "Asia is different". In comparison with previous currency crises, the macroeconomic fundamentals (GDP growth, inflation, fiscal deficit, external indebtedness, domestic savings, export performance) in the Southeast Asian economies seemed to be consistent with the fixed or quasi-fixed exchange rate regimes. Even large current account deficits were not classified as "high risk" although the vulnerability of Southeast Asian countries had increased during the last decade due to a surge in capital inflows, a construction boom, the appreciation of the US dollar, and the liberalization of domestic financial markets without strict enforcement of prudential standards. Early signals of vulnerability should have warned domestic policymakers to take precautionary measures such as more exchange rate flexibility to end sterilization policies, higher marginal reserve requirements, and prudential standards for bank lending to reduce the risk exposure of banks. Some of these measures were taken in 1996, but apparently it was too little or too late. In the aftermath of the crisis, the enforcement of prudential rules in the financial sector and the clearing of bad debt figure high on the policy agenda. In order to help financial restructuring, fiscal and monetary policies should not be overly restrictive. The role of external assistance is ambiguous because of negative incentive effects. The currency crises in Asia boosted the amounts of emergency lending by the IMF and other countries, which may raise expectations that defaults will become cheaper in the future. Moreover, officially implemented early warning systems may easily produce the bad news which triggers exchange rate crises. All in all, Asia is not different from other regions. High current account deficits and real appreciation expose countries with fixed or quasi-fixed exchange rates and fragile domestic financial markets to the risk of a reversal of capital inflows. This mounting risk position can lead to a crisis when bad news arrives and domestic measures are delayed. Therefore, Asia could have learned from previous currency crises in Latin America and Europe: first, extreme solutions for the exchange rate regime (currency boards or a passive crawling peg with wide intervention bands) work best; second, deregulated goods and factor markets with strict prudential supervision (especially in the phase of financial liberalization) are necessary preconditions for a stable fixed exchange rate regime; third, development models with discretionary government interventions face difficult times since the globalization of goods and factor markets renders economic plans of today obsolete tomorrow.