El objetivo del trabajo es determinar las variables fundamentales que explican la evolucion de los tipos de cambio nominales, estudiando especificamente las relaciones no lineales en un modelo de tipos de cambio con precios flexibles. Realiza una evaluacion del modelo utilizando datos diarios del SME sobre los que aplica analisis grafico, tests de hipotesis, y analisis de prevision. El resultado es la imposibilidad de caracterizar la evolucion de los tipos y la nula ventaja de los modelos no lineales sobre los lineales. Incluye los graficos resultantes del tratamiento econometrico.(jha).

The experiences of the Exchange Rate Mechanism of the European Community have highlighted the difficulties of exchange rate control. Exchange Rate Determination and Control investigates the determinants of exchange rates and evaluates the main options for policy makers in limiting exchange rate fluctuations, drawing on the empirical evidence of the experiences of the G7 countries over the last two decades.

We present a model of a “soft” exchange rate target zone and interpret it as a stylized description of the post-August 1993 ERM. Our central bank targets a moving average of the current and past exchange rates, rather than the exchange rate’s current level, thus allowing the rate to move within wide margins in the short run, but within narrow margins in the long run. For realistic parameters, soft target zones are significantly less vulnerable to speculative attacks than “hard” target zones. These predictions are consistent with the ERM’s experience and the abatement of speculative pressure in European markets since the bands’ widening in 1993.

Currency denomination remains a barrier to full financial integration, however, since both nominal and real returns on financial instruments vary widely by currency, even between currencies tied together by the European Monetary System. This study examines relative returns in the money and bond markets of these countries, investigating whether there are systematic variations in relative returns across currencies.

This paper studies the implications of the imperfect credibility of an exchange rate target zone on the term structure of forward premia. The relationship between spot and forward exchange rates of different maturities reflects the possibility of repeated realignments of the exchange rate band. The credibility of the commitment to the target zone implicit in forward market data can be extracted by estimating the model. Application to French/German data indicates that the model is capable of matching observed patterns of interest rate differentials during the EMS, while yielding estimates of the credibility parameters that accord with the experience of the FF/DM exchange rate during the 1980s.

This volume examines the intersection between a new analytical approach and a real economic problem.

A collection of articles presented at the XLVI Applied Econometrics Association conference on exchange rates held in Heigerloch Castle, Germany), in 1995. The book consists of three parts examining the experience of the exchange rate in Europe. In the first part some aspects of exchange rate determination in Europe are examined; the second part deals with the exchange rate policy within the European Monetary System; in the third part an analysis of recent intervention practices in the European exchange rate markets is presented.