Archived Series > World Economic and Financial Surveys
Abstract
This paper reviews developments and issues in the exchange arrangements and currency convertibility of IMF members. Against the backdrop of continuing financial globalization and a series of emerging market crises since 1997, there have been important changes in the evolution of exchange rate regimes and the pace of liberalization of current and capital transactions among IMF member countries. There has been a shift away from intermediate regimes according to the IMF's official exchange rate regime classification system based on de facto exchange rate policies. The de facto exchange rate classification system has helped to clarify the nature and role of members' exchange rate regimes. It has facilitated discussions with country authorities about the implementation of exchange rate regimes and hence has contributed to more effective surveillance of the international monetary system. The use of exchange controls appears to have been little influenced by the degree of flexibility of exchange rate regimes or the occurrences of currency crises.
Abstract
This study reviews the developments and issues in the exchange arrangements and currency convertibility of IMF members. The principal information source for this report is the Annual Report on Exchange Arrangements and Exchange Restrictions prepared in consultation with national authorities.
Abstract
The global trend toward lilberalization in countries international payments and transfer systems has been widespread in both industrial and developing countries and most dramatic in Central and Eastern Europe. Countries in general have brought their exchange systems more in line with market principles and moved toward more flexible exchange rate arrangements. This study updates previous studies published under the title Developments in International Exchange and Payments Systems.
Abstract
This paper presents the international financial markets aspects of the current turbulence in emerging markets. The ongoing international diversification of institutional portfolios, the return of flight capital, and the cyclical developments in industrial countries combined to generate a significant volume of capital flows into emerging markets in the developing world. In keeping with developments in global markets, these flows have increasingly been in the form of purchases of tradable bonds, equities, and money market instruments—securities that can readily be sold when sentiments change. The volume of financial wealth that can flee a developing country is now sufficiently large that it can overwhelm any attempt to maintain an exchange rate incompatible with fundamentals. Thus the possibility for investors—domestic and foreign—to exert discipline over policy has strengthened significantly. The resolution of sovereign debt-servicing difficulties has become more complicated with the changes in instruments and participants in international markets.
Abstract
This paper focuses on the private nonfinancial sectors of the affected economies, financial liberalization provided households and businesses with greater access to credit markets. This contributed to the long period of expansion during the 1980s. Partly as a result of major changes to the financial systems, several industrial countries had a boom in asset markets associated with a period of asset accumulation, an unprecedented buildup of debt, a sharp increase in relative asset prices, and related increases in household wealth. The expansion in household financial activity in the United Kingdom during the 1980s was paralleled by a sizable boom in investment spending and an increase in corporate debt. The structure of balance sheets was also affected by mergers and acquisitions that led to a further expansion in corporate debt. New types of bank loans and accounts have prevented even greater disintermediation but have also reduced net interest margins because more deposits now earn market-related rates of return.
Abstract
This paper examines the implications of the growth and integration of international capital markets for the management of exchange rates, with particular attention to the inferences that can be drawn from the currency turmoil that shook the European Monetary System (EMS) last fall and winter. The resources available to the private sector for taking positions in the forex market are now much larger than even those of the Group of Ten central banks. When private markets, led by the increasing financial muscle of institutional investors, reach the concerted view (rightly or wrongly) that the risk/return outlook for a particular currency has deteriorated significantly, the defending central bank could be faced with a run that could easily amount to, say, $100–200 billion or more within a week. The range of private market participants involved in last fall’s crisis in European currency markets was broad—encompassing banks, securities houses, institutional investors, hedge funds, and corporations. However that wide participation explains in part why the funds that flooded into central banks were so massive.
Abstract
This paper describes that in developing countries, the moves toward more flexible exchange rate arrangements and liberalization of exchange controls often occurred in the context of comprehensive macroeconomic adjustment programs supported by the IMF. These programs featured a broad range of policy actions, including an increasing emphasis on structural reforms aimed at improving resource allocation and enhancing the supply response of the economy. With respect to restrictive systems, the trend toward liberalization of nontrade current and capital transactions continues, primarily because it is seen as ineffective, even counterproductive, to try to control such financial flows. This trend contrasts with trade where it appears that some major participants have been awaiting the outcome of the Uruguay Round before further reducing restrictions. A single currency peg has been the exchange arrangement most frequently used by developing countries, of which over one third currently have such an arrangement. This type of peg has the merit of being easy to administer and is generally chosen by countries that have a large share of foreign exchange transactions in the currency chosen as the peg.
Abstract
This paper summarizes major measures taken in the international exchange and trade systems in 1988 and developments in exchange arrangements and the evolution of exchange rates. The exchange arrangements adopted by members since 1973 cover a broad spectrum of degrees of flexibility, from single-currency pegs to a freely floating system. Most countries have adopted arrangements that fall clearly into one or another of the major categories of the present classification system adopted by the IMF in 1982, and countries with dual markets usually have one market that is clearly more important than the other, which allows accurate classification by major market. Changes in IMF members' arrangements for their currencies during this decade have shown a distinct tendency to move toward more flexible arrangements and away from single-currency pegs, continuing a trend that began in the mid-1970s. A qualitative sense of the significance of the trend toward more flexible arrangements can be conveyed by the degree that world trade is affected by countries adopting different arrangements.
Abstract
This paper emphasizes on the policy reaction of the agencies and their authorities to countries in various stages of debt-servicing difficulties. Export credit agencies have, over the past few years, been adopting a progressively more open stance. This is true with respect to short-term cover generally and, with respect to medium-term cover, for countries that have rescheduled their debts but are implementing adjustment programs and adhering to Paris Club agreements. Despite the more open stance, the volume of new medium-term credit and cover commitments to developing countries appears to have fallen off sharply over the past two years. Although for some debtors the operative constraint is clearly on the supply of new credits and cover, this is not the general case and, indeed, agencies reported net repayments from some countries for which they were wide open for new business. A number of agencies also considered that a factor behind the decline in both investment and export credits to support that investment could be the terms on which such credits are available.
Abstract
This paper emphasizes on the policy reaction of the agencies and their authorities to countries in various stages of debt-servicing difficulties. It was found that, largely for competitive reasons and provided that significant arrears had not emerged, agencies as a group had tended to remain quite open for debtors pursuing policies that could be expected to lead to payments difficulties, thus facilitating the postponement of necessary adjustment by the debtor and increasing the likelihood of eventual debt-servicing difficulties. Despite this more open stance, the volume of new medium-term credit and cover commitments to developing countries appears to have fallen off sharply over the past two years. Although for some debtors the operative constraint is clearly on the supply of new credits and cover, this is not the general case and, indeed, agencies reported net repayments from some countries for which they were wide open for new business.