Handbook of International Economics

"This Handbook adopts a traditional definition of the subject, and focuses primarily on the explanation of international transactions in goods, services, and assets, and on the main domestic effects of those transactions. The first volume deals with the "real side" of international economics. It is concerned with the explanation of trade and factor flows, with their main effects on goods and factor prices, on the allocation of resources and income distribution and on economic welfare, and also with the effects on national policies designed explicitly to influence trade and factor flows. In other words, it deals chiefly with microeconomic issues and methods. The second volume deals with the "monetary side" of the subject. It is concerned with the balance of payments adjustment process under fixed exchange rates, with exchange rate determination under flexible exchange rates, and with the domestic ramifications of these phenomena. Accordingly, it deals mainly with economic issues, although microeconomic methods are frequently utilized, especially in work on expectations, asset markets, and exchange rate behavior."--Publisher's information

This edited volume examines capital mobility in both industrialised and developing countries.

The paper reviews the recent literature on exchange rate target zones and on speculative attacks on fixed exchange rates. The influential Krugman model of exchange rate target zones has two main results, namely that credible target zones stabilize exchange rates more than fundamentals (the `honeymoon effect') and that exchange rates depend on fundamentals according to a nonlinear `S-curve' with `smooth pasting.' Almost all the model's empirical implications have been overwhelmingly rejected. Later research has reconciled the theory with empirical results by allowing for imperfectly credible exchange rates and for intra-marginal central bank interventions. That research has also shown that non-linearities and smooth pasting are probably empirically insignificant and that a linear managed-float model is a good approximation to exchange rate target zones. The speculative attack literature has developed models built on the principles of no anticipated price discontinuities, endogenous timing of the speculative attack, and the attack occurring when a finite amount of foreign exchange reserves remain. These models have been extended to include random timing of attacks and alternative post attack regimes. Some empirical tests have been undertaken. In contrast to target zone models, speculative attack models have been influenced by empirical results only to a small extent.