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.

Many countries have moved towards more flexible exchange rate regimes over the last decade to take advantage of greater monetary policy autonomy and flexibility in responding to external shocks. Some reluctance to let go of pegged exchange rates persists, however, despite the benefits of flexibility. The institutional and operational requirements needed to support a floating exchange rate, as well as difficulties in assessing the right time and manner to exit, tend to be additional factors in this reluctance. This volume presents the concrete steps taken by a number of countries in transition to greater exchange rate flexibility and elaborates on the operational ingredients that proved helpful in promoting successful and durable transitions. It attempts to provide a better understanding (and hence a "road map") of how these various operational ingredients were established and coordinated, how their implementation interacted with macro and other conditions, and how they contributed to the smoothness of each transition.

This paper identifies the institutional and operational requisites for transitions to floating exchange rate regimes. In particular, it explores key issues underlying the transition, including developing a deep and liquid foreign exchange market, formulating intervention policies consistent with the new regime, establishing an alternative nominal anchor in the context of a new monetary policy framework, and building the capacity of market participants to manage exchange rate risks and of supervisory authorities to regulate and monitor them. It also assesses the factors that influence the pace of exit and the appropriate sequencing of exchange rate flexibility and capital account liberalization.

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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.

Theoretical models on the relationship between prices and exchange rates predict that the magnitude of expenditure switching affects the optimal choice of exchange rate regime. Focusing on the transmission of terms-of-trade shocks to domestic real variables we document that the magnitude of the expenditure switching effect is positively associated to the degree of exchange rate flexibility. Moreover, results show that flexible exchange rates allow for significant adjustment in relative prices, which in turn lowers the burden of adjustment on demand for domestic goods and, in some cases, facilitates a faster and more durable external adjustment process. These results, which are robust to accounting for possible non-linearities due to balance sheet effects or currency mismatches, shed new light on the shock absorbing properties of flexible exchange rates.