《美元本位下的汇率东亚高储蓄两难》.doc

After the Crisis, The East Asian Dollar Standard Resurrected: An Interpretation of High Frequency Exchange Rate Pegging Ronald I. McKinnon1 Stanford University May 2001 Abstract For more than a decade before the great crisis of 1997-98, East Asian countries pegged “softly” to the U.S. dollar. In the period of currency chaos from mid 1997 through 1998 with exchange depreciations in eight East Asian countries, massive deflationary pressure in dollar terms which was unleashed in the whole East Asian region. Surprisingly, however, the post-crisis exchange rate regime in 1999 into 2000 again exhibits high frequency pegging to the dollar much like the pre-crisis regime. In 1999-2000, there was (is) a “honeymoon” effect where short-term rates of interest in the crisis economies remained unusually low so that hot money flows were temporarily muted. But this honeymoon will end as the crisis recedes in time. Finally, I explore how the informal “rules of the game” under which the East Asian dollar standard operates might be improved to (1) lengthen the term structure of finance—including exchange rate obligations—to make the system more resilient, and (2) tighten bank regulation so as to reduce moral hazard in international capital flows. 1 Economics Department, mckinnon@leland.stanford.edu I would like to thank Sumit Khedekar for his enormous input in setting up all the statistical tests, and thank Masahiro Kawai for his own valuable statistical work which parallels that presented here—although some of his conclusions on optimum exchange rate strategies may differ. Rishi Goyal provided invaluable general research assistance. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the HKIMR on 31 August 2000. The views presented in this paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the Hong Kong Institute for Monetary Research, its Council of Advisers or Board of Directors.  1. Introduction For more than a decade before the crisis of June 1997 to Dec