TY - JOUR AU - Svensson,Lars E.O. TI - Fixed Exchange Rates as a Means to Price Stability: What Have We Learned JF - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series VL - No. 4504 PY - 1994 Y2 - September 1994 UR - http://www.nber.org/papers/w4504 L1 - http://www.nber.org/papers/w4504.pdf N1 - Author contact info: Lars E.O. Svensson Sveriges Riksbank SE-103 37 Stockholm SWEDEN Tel: +46 8 787 0107 Fax: +46 8 21 0531 E-Mail: lars.svensson@iies.su.se M2 - featured in NBER digest on 1994-05-01 AB - The paper discusses what we have learned from last year's currency crises in ERM and the Nordic countries about fixed exchange rates as a means to achieve price stability. After discussing the explanations for the crises, the paper concludes that fixed exchange rates are not a shortcut to price stability. Monetary stability and credibility have to be built at home and cannot easily be imported from abroad. Fixed exchange rates are more fragile and difficult to maintain than previously thought. They may even be in conflict with price stability, by inducing a procyclical destabilizing monetary policy, and by inducing an inflation bias. Building monetary credibility is even more important with flexible exchange rates. ER -