To Devalue or to Defend: The Political Economy of Exchange Rate Policy in the Developing World

贬值还是捍卫：发展中国家汇率政策的政治经济学

• 批准号: 9986472
• 负责人: David Leblang
• 金额: $ 4.77万
• 依托单位: University of North Texas
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2000
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2000-01-15 至 2000-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=9986472&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Devalue; Defend; Political; Economy; Exchange

The speed and force with which capital crosses national borders has led scholars and policymakers alike to question both the usefulness and practicality of fixed exchange rate regimes. While fixed exchange rate regimes provide price stability and can act as a nominal actor for monetary policy, they are vulnerable to speculative attacks as evidenced by recent events in Europe. While scholarly investigations have models to explain and/or predict the occurrence of speculative attacks, these models fail to take political uncertainty and political preferences seriously.This research addresses two related questions regarding the political economy of exchange rate policy in the developing world. First, what role do political factors play in the process of a speculative attack? A casual glance at the political situations in East Asia provides some inductive evidence that markets react to political uncertainty. During the 1997-1998 period Korea and the Phillipines had elections and the political situation in Thailand was uncertain because the governing coalition was made up of six parts. Part of this research involves collecting data to measure political uncertainty including: the timing of elections; a change in government leadership; the effective number of parties in the legislature; electoral volatility; and, government cohesion. The researchers hypothesize that speculative attacks are more likely when there is uncertainty regarding the future of government policies.The second question attended to in this project asks why do some policymakers devalue or abandon their currency peg while others defend its value? The decision to defend a currency's parity requires the government (monetary authority) to (1) spend foreign exchange reserves and/or (2) raise domestic short-term interest rates. These policy changes have political implications in that they may lead to higher unemployment and government debt and lower investment and economic growth. The research argues that the key factors influencing a policymaker's objective function when confronted with the decision to devalue or defend their currency's peg are determined by the country's political institutions. Leaders in a dictatorship do not face as great a risk of political loss if confronted with economic crisis. Further, politicians in countries with proportional electoral systems risk political/electoral defeat if they are forced to raise interest rates if they fail to take actions to reduce unemployment. Politicians in countries with majoritarian electoral institutions fall between these two extremes.The research uses binomial and multinomial probit to test a number of hypotheses related to these two questions on a sample of non-OECD countries over the period 1970-1998 using yearly and monthly data. No data set currently exists that contains comparable political data on developing countries covering electoral rules, electoral institutions, party fractionalization and legislative volatility on a monthly basis. These variables are collected from sources such as Keesing's Contemporary Archive of World Events, the Country Reports and Country Profiles of the Economist Intelligence Unit, the Lijphart Elections Archive, and numerous other sources.

资本跨越国界的速度和力量使学者和政策制定者都对固定汇率制度的有用性和实用性提出了质疑。 虽然固定汇率制度提供了价格稳定，并可以作为货币政策的名义行为者，但它们很容易受到投机性攻击，欧洲最近发生的事件就是证明。 虽然学术研究有模型来解释和/或预测投机性攻击的发生，这些模型未能采取政治不确定性和political preferences serious.This研究解决两个相关的问题，在发展中国家的汇率政策的政治经济学。 首先，政治因素在投机性攻击过程中扮演什么角色？ 对东亚政治局势的随意一瞥提供了一些归纳证据，表明市场对政治不确定性做出反应。 在1997-1998年期间，韩国和菲律宾举行了选举，泰国的政治局势不确定，因为执政联盟由六部分组成。 这项研究的一部分涉及收集数据以衡量政治不确定性，包括：选举时间;政府领导层的变化;立法机构中政党的有效数量;选举波动性;以及政府凝聚力。 研究人员假设，当政府政策的未来存在不确定性时，投机性攻击更有可能发生。本项目关注的第二个问题是，为什么一些政策制定者贬值或放弃盯住汇率，而另一些人则捍卫其价值？ 维护货币平价的决定要求政府（货币当局）（1）动用外汇储备和/或（2）提高国内短期利率。 这些政策变化具有政治影响，因为它们可能导致失业率和政府债务上升，投资和经济增长下降。 该研究认为，影响决策者的目标函数的关键因素时，面临的决定，贬值或维护其货币的联系汇率制是由国家的政治制度。 独裁国家的领导人在面临经济危机时，不会面临政治损失的巨大风险。 此外，在实行比例选举制度的国家，如果政治家未能采取行动降低失业率，就可能被迫提高利率，从而面临政治/选举失败的风险。 政治家在国家与多数选举制度落在这两个extremes.The研究使用二项式和多项式probit测试的一些假设有关的这两个问题的样本的非经合组织国家在1970年至1998年期间使用年度和月度数据。 目前没有任何数据集载有关于发展中国家每月选举规则、选举机构、政党分化和立法波动的可比政治数据。 这些变量来自Keesing的当代世界事件档案，经济学人信息部的国家报告和国家概况，Lijphart选举档案以及许多其他来源。