Currency crisis duration and interest defence

Asymmetric wars of attrition between speculators and a Central Bank can provide a useful framework to address currency crisis length and explain why a speculative attack can fail after some time. Interest rate defence can be analysed too. A non‐linear relationship between interest rates and peg defence emerges, as a rate upsurge can reduce both concession times. With some welfare loss functions, increasing the domestic rate too much is a self‐defeating policy as the Central Bank will opt out before speculators concede, but the reverse holds for lower rates. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.