Volatile exchange rates and how to manage them are a contentious topic whenever economic policymakers gather in international meetings. This book examines the broad parameters of exchange rate policy in light of both high-powered theory and real-world experience. What are the costs and benefits of flexible versus fixed exchange rates? How much of a role should the exchange rate play in monetary policy? Why don't volatile exchange rates destabilize inflation and output? The principal finding of this book is that using monetary policy to fight exchange rate volatility, including through the adoption of a fixed exchange rate regime, leads to greater volatility of employment, output, and inflation. In other words, the "cure" for exchange rate volatility is worse than the disease. This finding is demonstrated in economic models, in historical case studies, and in statistical analysis of the data. The book devotes considerable attention to understanding the reasons why volatile exchange rates do not destabilize inflation and output. The book concludes that many countries would benefit from allowing greater flexibility of their exchange rates in order to target monetary policy at stabilization of their domestic economies. Few, if any, countries would benefit from a move in the opposite direction.

A growing number of countries are adopting flexible exchange rate regimes because flexibility offers more protection against external shocks and greater monetary independence. Other countries have made the transition under disorderly conditions, with the sharp depreciation of their currency during a crisis. Regardless of the reason for adopting a flexible exchange rate, a successful transition depends on the effective management of a number of institutional and operational issues. The authors of this Economic Issue describe the necessary ingredients for moving to a flexible regime, as well as the optimal pace and sequencing under different conditions.

This book contains the papers, comments, and the discussion at a conference on "Flexible Exchange Rates and Stabilization Policy", held at Saltsjobaden, Stockholm, August 26–27, 1975. The papers integrate the flexible exchange rates theory with macro theory and stabilization policy analysis. .

This paper investigates the effects of fixed versus flexible exchange rates on firms’ location choices and on countries’ specialization patterns. In a two-country, two-differentiated-goods monetary model, demand, supply, and monetary (as well as exchange rate) shocks arise after wages are set and prices are optimally chosen. The paper finds that countries are more specialized under flexible than fixed rates, and that the pattern of specialization is not uniquely defined by trade models but depends also on the exchange rate regime. The adoption of fixed exchange rates endogenously increases the desirability of this currency area by reducing the shock asymmetry. These results also shed light on the effects of exchange rate variability on trade.

This book compares and contrasts flexible versus fixed exchange rate regimes. Beginning with their theoretical justifications, it showcases their observed advantages and disadvantages as they played out in the currency crises of the 1990s and early 2000s across Asia, Europe and Latin America. An analysis of the drivers and implications of these crises singles out fast-paced liberalization and globalization as having played central roles. Moreover it sheds light on some of the factors contributing to the 2008 financial crisis and the key monetary events in its aftermath. An accessible, yet rigorous discussion, supported by extensive evidence, helps readers reach their own conclusions regarding the respective merits of alternative exchange rate systems.