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This paper discusses whether adopting the U.S. dollar as the sole legal tender could help Liberia, a postconflict economy, to boost growth and strengthen fiscal discipline. In view of the performance of exchange rate regimes in many countries and Liberia's own experience with dollarization, we conclude that Liberia should not adopt full dollarization for the following reasons: (i) the alleged benefits voiced by the proponents of dollarization, in terms of enhanced fiscal discipline and faster economic growth, are not supported by the empirical evidence; (ii) dollarization would increase the Liberian economy's vulnerability to external shocks and Liberia's social fragility; (iii) banks in fully dollarized economies face additional capitalization requirements that Liberian banks cannot meet at present; and (iv) dollarization would be costly in terms of real resources because of the loss of seigniorage.

This paper reviews recent experience with the choice of floating or fixed (\"anchor\") exchange regimes in industrial and developing countries. It concludes that desirable differences between the two sets of regimes have narrowed, owing to the useful operational role of exchange rate margins and unavoidable medium-term rate adjustments in the context of fixed regimes. A survey of recent empirical cross-country literature also suggests little unambiguous association of the choice of exchange regime with macroeconomic performance, inflation in particular. Stability of the exchange rate has generally been a by-product of other policy choices. Even announcement effects of the regime on inflation-fighting credibility depend on the country-specific assignments of policy instruments to more than one institution - central bank, government, or regional and multilateral institutions.

Currency boards operate differently from standard pegs. The former exhibit greater currency stability and lower transaction costs, inflation, and nominal interest rates, but are limited in their use of devaluation. We extend Drazen and Masson's (1994) signaling model to consider the choice between currency board arrangements and standard pegs. The model shows that currency boards' effectiveness hinges on their credibility properties and that they can improve welfare even with high unemployment persistence. By reducing expected inflation and the negative employment effect arising from expected but unrealized inflation, currency boards can produce less unemployment than peg regimes that abstain from devaluation.

This paper assesses the nature of fiscal discipline under alternative exchange rate regimes. First, it shows in a simple theoretical framework that fiscal agencies under a currency union with a fixed exchange rate can have the largest incentive to overspend or \"free-ride\" (compared to those under other exchange rate regimes) owing to their ability to spread the costs of overspending in terms of the inflation tax across both time-given the fixed exchange rate-and space-given the currency union. In contrast, such free-riding behavior does not arise under flexible regimes owing to the immediate inflationary impact of spending. Next, empirically, it shows that fiscal stances in countries with fixed pegs and currency unions regime demonstrate greater free-riding behavior than countries with more flexible regimes in 15 Caribbean countries during 1983-2004.

Although negative shocks have persistent effects on output on average, this paper shows that macroeconomic policies and the structure of the economy can influence the speed of recovery and mitigate the persistence of the shock. Indeed, monetary and fiscal stimulus and foreign aid can spur a rebound, with impacts that are asymmetrically stronger than in nonrecovery years. Real depreciation and the exchange rate regime also have asymmetric growth effects in a recovery year relative to other years of expansion. Recoveries are more sluggish in open economies, partly because fiscal policy is less effective than in closed economies

This paper analyzes issues for developing countries considering a move to capital account convertibility. It reviews the relevant literature, including arguments for sequencing, and analyses in a series of charts various features of the foreign exchange market impact of removing controls, as against the alternative of foreign exchange intervention. Finally, it examines recent experiences of capital account liberalization by developing countries in the context of multi-pronged stabilization programs.

This paper investigates the effects of fixed versus flexible exchange rates on firms' location choices and on countries' specialization patterns. In a two-country, two-differentiated-goods monetary model, demand, supply, and monetary (as well as exchange rate) shocks arise after wages are set and prices are optimally chosen. The paper finds that countries are more specialized under flexible than fixed rates, and that the pattern of specialization is not uniquely defined by trade models but depends also on the exchange rate regime. The adoption of fixed exchange rates endogenously increases the desirability of this currency area by reducing the shock asymmetry. These results also shed light on the effects of exchange rate variability on trade.

A typical strategy used by speculators to launch an attack on a fixed exchange regime is the use of forward markets. Central banks also intervene in forward markets to counter speculation. This paper addresses the question of how an attack is launched on the forward market, and what the optimal policy response to such speculation is in the forward and spot markets. The paper also demonstrates how central banks can impose a bear squeeze on speculators. Recent events in South East Asian currency markets are interpreted within the framework of the model's predictions.