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David K.H. Begg, Gianluigi Vernasca-Economics-McGraw Hill Higher Education (2011)

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Learning Outcomes<br />

By the end of this chapter, you should understand:<br />

0 price and output adjustment under fixed exchange rates<br />

0 monetary and fiscal policy under fixed exchange rates<br />

0 the effects of devaluation<br />

e what determines floating exchange rates<br />

0 monetary and fiscal policy under floating exchange rates<br />

Chapter 24 introduced fixed and floating exchange rate regimes. We now study how the exchange rate<br />

regime affects the way in which an economy operates.<br />

Openness is often measured by the size of exports (or imports) relative to GDP. However, links through<br />

financial markets often have more impact. Large outflows of financial capital can provoke acute crises.<br />

Such crises may induce austerity measures to reassure foreign investors, devaluation of a pegged exchange<br />

rate or adoption of a completely new exchange rate regime.<br />

UK discussions about future exchange rate policy still recall the day in 1992 that the<br />

UK was forced off a pegged exchange rate in the Exchange Rate Mechanism; and in<br />

2010 the options for Greece, pegged to its eurozone partners, were very different from<br />

those of the UK. Even in the absence of crises, the choice of exchange rate regime affects<br />

the transmission mechanism of both monetary and fiscal policy. In this chapter, we<br />

study how our analysis for a closed economy must be amended for an open economy.<br />

Open economy<br />

macroeconomics examines<br />

how the economy is affected<br />

by links with other countries<br />

through trade, the exchange<br />

rate and capital flows.<br />

Initially, we examine fixed exchange rate regimes. Then we discuss the determination of floating exchange<br />

rates and the consequences for macroeconomic policy.<br />

Fixed exchange rates<br />

The balance of payments and the money supply<br />

To understand the role of capital mobility, suppose initially that there are no private sector capital flows,<br />

perhaps because of controls on capital flows.<br />

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