Inhaltsangabe:Zusammenfassung: Währungskrisen, wie die des Europäischen Währungssystems (EWS) 1992, können noch immer nur unzureichend vorausgesagt werden. Es wird jedoch anerkannt, dass die Glaubwürdigkeit eines jeden Währungssystems ausschließlich endogen bestimmt wird, d.h. durch Interaktion der einzelnen Akteure an den Wechselkursmärkten. Die vorliegende Arbeit untersucht, ob ein bestimmtes Glaubwürdigkeitsmaß, eingeführt von Avesani, Gallo und Salmon (1995), geeignet ist, die große EWS Krise 1992 vorauszusagen. Dabei handelt es sich um ein dynamisches Spiel, in dem die beiden Akteure (Zentralbank und Finanzmarkt) miteinander interagieren und damit die Glaubwürdigkeit des Systems aushandeln . Es wird gezeigt, dass o.g. Glaubwürdigkeitsmaß ein geeigneter Indikator für Währungskrisen darstellt, was empirisch anhand des französischen Francs, der italienischen Lira und des niederländischen Guldens nachgewiesen wird. Introduction: The objective of the present study is to present the literature of exchange rate target zones and to explore empirically the Avesani-Gallo-Salmon credibility measure for selected currencies belonging to the Exchange-Rate Mechanism (ERM) of the European Monetary System (EMS). In the past decade the empirical literature on real world target zones mushroomed considerably, but still, its overall significance in explaining strains in the relevant foreign exchange markets remains relatively low. In this context, I will explore whether the Avesani-Gallo-Salmon (1995) credibility measure demonstrates more power than earlier studies in the analysis of the 1992/3 EMS crisis. It is not my intention to pursue a normative analysis whether flexible or fixed exchange rates or intermediate regimes are superior to one another in terms of their economic implications. This question is beyond the scope of my analysis.1 Given that target zones are applied frequently in the real world, I purely want to figure out, whether their application is sensible on grounds of a firm commitment of the policy-makers. Exchange rate bands have been discussed widely after the breakdown of the Bretton Woods System in 1973. Although experiences with the fixed exchange rate regime were disappointing in the 1960s, increased volatility and/or overshooting of the exchange rates in the 1970s let economists doubt the famous argument by Friedman (1953) that speculation would stabilize exchange rate movements in the floating system. McKinnon (1976) reckoned that [...]

Under the assumption of no arbitrage exchange rate target zone credibility is tested by whether domestic interest rates fall within “rate-of-return bands” between the maximum and minimum home-currency rate of return on a foreign investment absent a devaluation. Under the assumption of uncovered interest rate parity credibility is tested by whether expected future exchange rates fall within the exchange rate band. These tests are applied on data about the Swedish target zone during January 1987-August 1990.

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.

In this paper we develop an empirical model of exchange rates in a target zone. The model is general enough to nest most theoretical and empirical models in the existing literature. We find evidence of two types of jumps in exchange rates. Realignment jumps are those that are associated with the periodic realignments of the target zone and within-the-band jumps are those that can be accommodated within the current target zone. The exchange rate may jump outside the current target zone band, in the case of a realignment, but when no jump occurs the target zone is credible (there is zero probability of a realignment) and the exchange rate must stay within the band. We incorporate jumps, in general, by conditioning the distribution of exchange rate changes on a jump variable where the probability and size of a jump vary over time as a function of financial and macroeconomic variables. With this more general model, we revisit the empirical evidence from the European Monetary System regarding the conditional distribution of exchange rate changes, the credibility of the system, and the size of the foreign exchange risk premia. In contrast to some previous findings, we conclude that the FF/DM rate exhibits considerable non-linearities, realignments are predictable and the credibility of the system did not increase after 1987. Moreover, our model implies that the foreign exchange risk premium becomes large during speculative crises. A comparison with the Deutschemark/Dollar rate suggests that an explicit target zone does have a noticeable effect on the time-series behavior of exchange rates.

Under the additional assumption of uncovered interest rate parity, an equivalent test is whether expected future exchange rates are outside the exchange rate band. In addition, the expected future exchange rates are used to give an estimate of the probability of future devaluations.