Working Papers
1990
November 1, 1990
Financial Market Volatility and the Implications for Market Regulation: A Survey
Description: Volatility in financial markets has forced economists to reexamine the validity of the efficient markets hypothesis, and new empirical approaches have been applied to the study of this important issue in recent years. Many of the recent studies have found evidence of excessive volatility. In the aftermath of the stock market crash of 1987 and the perceived increase in market volatility, some economists have advocated additional market regulations. Are these proposed regulations necessary and would they serve to reduce market volatility? This paper presents a review of recent studies on financial market volatility and examines the proposed regulations.
Notes: Also published in Staff Papers, Vol. 38, No. 3, September 1991.
November 1, 1990
Credibility and the Dynamics of Stabilization Policy: A Basic Framework
Description: This paper studies price stabilization policy under both predetermined and flexible exchange rates. Under predetermined exchange rates, a non-credible stabilization program results in an initial expansion of output, followed by a later recession. The initial expansion accompanies an appreciating real exchange rate. Under flexible exchange rates, the recession occurs at the beginning of the program. The real exchange rate appreciates sharply on impact but depreciates afterwards. Lack of credibility is more costly under predetermined exchange rates because the real effects are more pronounced.
November 1, 1990
The Macroeconomic Effects of Capital Controls and the Stabilization of the Balance of Trade
Description: A dynamic stochastic equilibrium model of a small open economy is used to quantify the macroeconomic effects of introducing capital controls to stabilize the balance of trade. This model focuses on the role of international trade and foreign debt as instruments that help smooth consumption in response to productivity or terms-of-trade disturbances. The model rationalizes some key empirical regularities that characterize business fluctuations and the dynamics of savings and investment in post-war Canada. The results show that capital controls have small effects on both the basic characteristics of macroeconomic fluctuations and the level of welfare. A fiscal strategy that successfully enforces capital controls by introducing taxes on foreign interest income is also studied in some detail.
November 1, 1990
Exchange Rate Bands with Point Process Fundamentals
Description: This note derives closed form solutions for exchange rates in terms of fundamentals within a fully credible band exchange rate regime when the fundamentals are driven by Brownian motion and multiple point processes. The inclusion of point processes allows one to relax quite substantially the distributional assumptions about exchange rates implicit in models based on Brownian motions alone, and should therefore prove of use in empirical applications. Models with discontinuous driving processes also differ from the Brownian motion model in that monetary authorities will be obliged periodically to intervene on a large scale in discrete amounts.
November 1, 1990
Structural Models of the Dollar
Description: This paper addresses several questions about the time series processes followed by dollar exchange rates. The stochastic process for exchange rates implied by structural models and the conditions under which they would be described by random walks are examined. Tests on the univariate time series for dollar exchange rates are undertaken to determine if there is evidence for departures from a random walk. Multivariate tests examine whether longer-run movements in the dollar are linked to those in other economic variables, and whether deviations from these long-run relationships contain information for predicting exchange rate movements.
Notes: Also published in Staff Papers, Vol. 38, No. 3, September 1991.
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1990
October 1, 1990
Alternative Dual Exchange Market Regimes: Some Steady State Comparisons
Description: This paper compares two alternative dual exchange market regimes. In one of them, the official market clears through changes in international reserves, while in the other regime, the central bank implements a rationing scheme so as to keep international reserves constant. The paper discusses the effects on the rate of inflation, the balance of payments, the real exchange rate, and the spread between the free and the official exchange rate, of various economic policies, including exchange rate policy, fiscal policy, and unification of the exchange markets. It concludes that the steady state effects for most of these policies are qualitatively the same under both regimes.
Notes: Also published in Staff Papers, Vol. 38, No. 3, September 1991.