Collaborative Research: The Political Economy of Exchange Rate Regimes: Managing the Middle in an Era of Global Capital

虽然许多因素导致了过去10年国际货币危机的爆发，但许多经济学家指出，使用挂钩汇率是最重要的因素之一。这种在真正固定汇率和灵活汇率之间做出的妥协，是战后布雷顿森林体系（Bretton Woods）建立的国际货币体系的标志之一，但随着国际资本流动性的增强，各国政府越来越难以捍卫挂钩汇率。这导致了“空心化”或“不稳定中间”假设的出现，即汇率制度将不断被推向“角落解决方案”——由相对自由浮动或硬固定汇率（如货币发行局、货币联盟和美元化）组成的安排。然而，这个假设有两个版本。一种是大多数经济学家所接受的，简单地说，各国将被赶出“死角”——布雷顿森林体系式的窄带可调挂钩。另一个更有争议的版本是，为了避免危机，各国必须走到一个极端或另一个极端。反对者认为，像爬行带这样的小运动是可行的。支持者可以举出这些制度运作良好的例子，而批评者可以指出其他制度运作不良的例子。现有文献中缺少的是对不同类型的中间汇率制度与货币危机之间关系的大规模研究。这一点尤其重要，因为我们有充分的理由相信，许多国家将会尽量避免走弯路。最优货币区理论的一个重要但未得到充分认识的含义是，只有少数国家可能适合实行牢固固定或高度灵活的汇率。对于非常大的国家，灵活的汇率往往是可取的，而对于非常小的国家，固定汇率通常是优越的。然而，在许多国家中，这两种方法都不太可能是最佳的。该项目将特别关注政治和政治制度在管理中等汇率制度方面的作用。从这个角度来看，宏观经济政策往往反映的是政策制定者的愿望，而不是经济模型的均衡解决方案。在一个资本流动性日益增强的世界里，政策制定者必须在汇率刚性和货币政策自主权之间做出选择。因此，中间汇率制度构成了一个中间地带，政策制定者可以拥有一定的汇率灵活性和一定的货币政策自主权。然而，如果这两项政策不能以一致的方式相互关联，那么很可能导致货币危机。经济文献正确地强调了高资本流动性如何使此类管理变得更加困难。我们将进行一项政治经济学分析，显示政治因素如何也会加大管理这种中间汇率制度的难度。在这个项目中，我们将研究不同类型的汇率制度在多大程度上容易发生危机，并研究一些经济、政治和制度因素如何与制度选择相互作用，以增加或减少危机的可能性。我们将对(i)汇率制度类型及其与货币危机的关系进行大n统计研究，（ii）为了减少危机发生的可能性，制度必须从中等水平转向中等水平的程度，以及（iii）有效“管理”中等水平所需的政策。我们将相当关注各种中间汇率制度的分类，并将开发一种新的行为衡量标准，与基于制度的分类进行比较。

While many factors contributed to the rash of international currency crises over the past decade, many economists point to the use of pegged exchange rates as one of the most important. Such compromises between genuinely fixed and flexible exchange rates were one of the hallmarks of the post war international monetary system established at Bretton Woods, but as international capital mobility has grown pegged rates have become increasingly difficult for governments to defend. This has given rise to the "hollowing out" or "unstable middle" hypothesis -that exchange rate regimes will continually be driven towards "corner solutions" -arrangements comprised of either relatively free floats or hard fixed rates such as currency boards, currency unions, and dollarization. There are two versions of this hypothesis, however. One, accepted by most economists, is simply that countries will be driven away from dead center -the Bretton Woods type narrow band adjustable peg. The other, more controversial, version is that to avoid crises, countries must go all the way to one extreme or the other. Dissenters argue that smaller movements such as to crawling bands would be viable. Advocates can point to examples where such regimes have worked well while critics can point to others where they haven't. What is missing from the extant literature is a large-scale study of the relationships between different types of intermediate exchange rate regimes and currency crises. This is particularly important because there are good reasons to believe that many countries will try to avoid corner solutions. An important and under appreciated implication of the theory of optimum currency areas is that only a minority of countries are likely to be good candidates for firmly fixed or highly flexible exchange rates. For very large countries flexible rates tend to be preferable and for very small ones fixed rates are usually superior. There is a broad middle range of countries, however, where neither is likely to be optimal. This project will pay special attention to the role of politics and political institutions when it comes to managing middle exchange rate regimes. From this point of view macroeconomic policy more often than not reflects the desires of policymakers and not the equilibrium solution of economic models. In a world of increasing capital mobility, policymakers have to choose a mixture of exchange rate rigidity and monetary policy autonomy. Intermediate exchange rate regimes thus constitute a middle ground where policymakers can have some exchange rate flexibility and some monetary policy autonomy. However, if the two policies are not related to each other in a consistent manner then currency crises are likely to result. The economic literature correctly stresses how high capital mobility makes such management more difficult. We will develop a political economy analysis that shows how political considerations also add importantly to the difficulty of managing such intermediate exchange rate regimes. In this project we will examine the extent to which different types of exchange rate regimes are crisis prone and investigate how a number of economic, political, and institutional considerations interact with regime choice to increase or reduce the likelihood of crisis. We will undertake a large-N Statistical study of (i) the exchange rate regime types and their connection with currency crises, (ii) the degree to which regimes have to move away from to middle to decrease the likelihood of crisis, and (iii) the policies required to effectively "manage" the middle. We will pay considerable attention to the classification of various types of intermediate exchange rate regimes and will develop a new behavioral measure to compare with institutionally based classifications.