On the Desirability of a Regional Basket Currency Arrangement

Eiji Ogawa, Takatoshi Ito

NBER Working Paper No. 8002
Issued in November 2000
NBER Program(s):   IFM

This paper considers a theoretical model to examine an optimal exchange rate regime for (Asian) emerging market economies that export goods to the U.S., Japan, and neighboring countries. The optimality of the exchange rate regime is defined as minimizing the fluctuation of trade balances, in the environment where the yen-dollar exchange rate fluctuates. Since the de facto dollar peg regime is blamed as one of the factors that caused the Asian currency crisis, the question of the optimal exchange rate regime is quite relevant in Asia. The novelty of this paper is to show how an emerging market economy's choice of the exchange rate regime (or weights in the basket) is dependent on the neighboring country's. The dollar weights in the currency baskets of the two countries are determined as a Nash equilibrium. In general, there are multiple equilibria, and a coordination failure' may result.

(238 K)

Published: Ogawa, Eiji and Takatoshi Ito. "On The Desirability Of A Regional Basket Currency Arrangement," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, 2002, v16(3,Sep), 317-334.

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