This paper explains a currency crisis as an outcome of a switch in how monetary policy and fiscal policy are coordinated. The paper develops a model of an open economy in which monetary policy starts active, fiscal policy starts passive and, in a particular state of nature, monetary policy switches to passive and fiscal policy switches to active. The probability of the regime switch is endogeno...

We study a model where the aggregate trading of currency speculators reveals new information to the central bank and affects its policy decision. We show that the learning process gives rise to coordination motives among speculators leading to large currency attacks and introducing non-fundamental volatility into exchange rates and policy decisions. We show that the central bank can improve the...

This paper explores the role played by government guarantees to banks’ foreign creditors as a root cause of self-fulfilling twin banking-currency crises. We develop a general equilibrium model in which such guarantees lead to these types of crises. Absent government guarantees, such crises are not possible. The model has three key properties. First, in the presence of government guarantees bank...