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Exchange Rate Regimes and Reforms: A Panel Analysis for the World versus OECD Countries *
Author(s) -
Belke Ansgar,
Herz Bernhard,
Vogel Lukas
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
international finance
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.458
H-Index - 39
eISSN - 1468-2362
pISSN - 1367-0271
DOI - 10.1111/j.1468-2362.2006.00184.x
Subject(s) - economics , exchange rate , pace , liberalization , sample (material) , exchange rate regime , panel data , monetary economics , product market , economic reform , international economics , macroeconomics , structural break , product (mathematics) , econometrics , market economy , politics , chemistry , geodesy , chromatography , law , political science , incentive , geography , geometry , mathematics
This paper examines the contemporaneous relationship between the exchange rate regime and structural economic reforms over a period of 30 years. Using panel data techniques, we look at both a broad ‘world sample’ and an OECD country sample. We investigate empirically whether structural reforms have complemented or substituted for monetary commitment in the attempt to improve macroeconomic performance. Our results suggest that, on average, an exchange rate rule positively correlates with the amount of overall structural reforms and of trade liberalization in particular. However, we do not find a significant and robust impact of exchange rate commitment on labour and product market reform. The results are similar for both the wider, more heterogeneous world sample and the panel of OECD economies. They contradict the hypothesis that exchange rate commitments may have slowed the pace of structural reform, but neither provides robust evidence that losing the possibility of an exchange rate adjustment promotes labour and product market reforms.