Friedman Redux : External Adjustment and Exchange Rate Flexibility /
Milton Friedman argued that flexible exchange rates would facilitate external adjustment. Recent studies find surprisingly little robust evidence that they do. We argue that this is because they use composite (or aggregate) exchange rate regime classifications, which often mask very heterogeneous bi...
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| Other Authors: | , |
| Format: | Journal |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Washington, D.C. :
International Monetary Fund,
2014.
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| Series: | IMF Working Papers; Working Paper ;
No. 2014/146 |
| Online Access: | Full text available on IMF |
| Summary: | Milton Friedman argued that flexible exchange rates would facilitate external adjustment. Recent studies find surprisingly little robust evidence that they do. We argue that this is because they use composite (or aggregate) exchange rate regime classifications, which often mask very heterogeneous bilateral relationships between countries. Constructing a novel dataset of bilateral exchange rate regimes that differentiates by the degree of exchange rate flexibility, as well as by direct and indirect exchange rate relationships, for 181 countries over 1980-2011, we find a significant and empirically robust relationship between exchange rate flexibility and the speed of external adjustment. Our results are supported by several "natural experiments" of exogenous changes in bilateral exchange rate regimes. |
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| Item Description: | <strong>Off-Campus Access:</strong> No User ID or Password Required <strong>On-Campus Access:</strong> No User ID or Password Required |
| Physical Description: | 1 online resource (43 pages) |
| Format: | Mode of access: Internet |
| ISSN: | 1018-5941 |
| Access: | Electronic access restricted to authorized BRAC University faculty, staff and students |