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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.

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 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.