Based on the Johansen cointegration estimation methodology, much of the long-run behavior of the real effective exchange rate of South Africa can be explained by real interest rate differentials, GDP per capita (both relative to trading partners), real commodity prices, trade openness, the fiscal balance, and the extent of net foreign assets. On the basis of these fundamentals, the real exchange rate in early 2002 was found to be significantly more depreciated with respect to the estimated equilibrium level. The half-life of the deviation of the real exchange rate from the estimated equilibrium one was found to be somewhat more than two years.

The study cautiously identifies exchange rate misalignment as an important element in most of the exchange rate crises that plagued the developing world during the last decade. Given that the increasing integration of world capital markets, has escalated the costs of such crises, a broad consensus emerged in recent years, that the overriding objective of exchange rate policy in developing countries, should be to avoid episodes of prolonged, and substantial misalignment, i.e., situations in which the actual real exchange rate differs significantly from its long-run equilibrium value. It was the Bank's involvement in one such misalignment episode, that eventually led to this book. Following an overview on the concepts and measurement of exchange rate misalignment, its impact on the purchasing power parity, and the relationship between the external real exchange rate (RER), and the two-good internal RER for tradables non-tradables, the study presents methodologies - empirical applications - for estimating the RER equilibrium. The study reaches an optimistic conclusion - that enough is known to identify cases of misalignment, and be able to sound clear warning signals. The implication for exchange rate policy is that ignorance about the empirical value of the equilibrium exchange rate, cannot be used to clinch arguments for extreme exchange arrangements, such as clean floats, currency boards, and "dollarization."

This paper computes Malawi's equilibrium real exchange rate as a function of its fundamentals as derived from economic theory. It finds evidence in favor of the equilibrium approach to exchange rate determination, with several variables (particularly government consumption and real per capita growth) found to drive movements in the time-varying equilibrium real exchange rate. The results also indicate that following a shock there is a rapid reversion of the real exchange rate to its time-varying equilibrium, with a half-life of reversion of about 11 months.

The macroeconomic experience of emerging and developing economies has tended to be quite different from that of industrial countries. Compared to industrial countries, emerging and developing economies have tended to be much more unstable, with more severe boom/bust cycles, episodes of high inflation and a variety of financial crises. This textbook describes how the standard macroeconomic models that are used in industrial countries can be modified to help understand this experience and how institutional and policy reforms in emerging and developing economies may affect their future macroeconomic performance. This second edition differs from the first in offering: extensive new material on themes such as fiscal institutions, inflation targeting, emergent market crises, and the Great Recession; numerous application boxes; end-of-chapter questions; references for each chapter; more diagrams, less taxonomy, and a more reader-friendly narrative; and enhanced integration of all parts of the work.

How successful is PPP, and its extension in the monetary model, as a measure of the equilibrium exchange rate? What are the determinants and dynamics of equilibrium real exchange rates? How can misalignments be measured, and what are their causes? What are the effects of specific policies upon the equilibrium exchange rate? The answers to these questions are important to academic theorists, policymakers, international bankers and investment fund managers. This volume encompasses all of the competing views of equilibrium exchange rate determination, from PPP, through other reduced form models, to the macroeconomic balance approach. This volume is essentially empirical: what do we know about exchange rates? The different econometric and theoretical approaches taken by the various authors in this volume lead to mutually consistent conclusions. This consistency gives us confidence that significant progress has been made in understanding what are the fundamental determinants of exchange rates and what are the forces operating to bring them back in line with the fundamentals.