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This paper asks what influence increasing capital mobility has on the choice of exchange rate regime. Among exchange rate regimes considered are currency boards and dollarization. It is argued that a key lesson of the recent currency and financial crises in the emerging markets is that corner solutions in exchange rate policy may be preferable to less rigidly fixed exchange rates. The paper concludes that in the end the optimal exchange rate regime depends on the circumstances of a particular country and time, because each exchange rate system requires the fulfillment of certain preconditions. The paper then discusses institutional measures and innovations that may be necessary to enable exchange rate arrangements to avoid financial and currency crises or to dampen their consequences.

The 1990s witnessed a tremendous increase in capital mobility and financial globalization. They also saw serious financial and currency crises. It is now widely believed that a global move toward greater exchange rate flexibility, on the one hand, or toward fixed exchange rates, on the other, would have avoided many of the problems that the international financial system has suffered in recent years. Pure floating and monetary union are the two regimes that cannot by construction be subjected to speculative attack. However, we know that free floating includes a tendency toward volatility. This exchange rate volatility is not always based on macroeconomic fundamentals and includes occasional speculative bubbles and crashes. This volatility could be avoided by adopting a monetary union. However, we know also that a worldwide monetary union is not implementable for a variety of reasons. Thus, one is forced to fall back on second-best solutions such as regional monetary unions, currency boards and dollarization. In the next section, I shall briefly discuss the conceptions of currency boards and dollarization. In the subsequent section, I shall deal with the causes of recent financial and currency crises, particularly in Asia, to determine whether corner solutions in exchange rate arrangements are suitable remedies for these types of financial and currency crisis. In the last section, I shall discuss further institutional measures or innovations which appear to be necessary as a supplement or a substitute to corner solutions in exchange rate arrangements in order to avoid financial and currency crises or to dampen their consequences.

The increase in capital mobility and financial globalization and the correlated recent financial and currency crises in emerging market economies have induced countries to rethink the question of optimal exchange rate regimes. It is nowadays widely believed that a global move toward corner solutions (free floating or a fixed peg in the form of a currency board or dollarization) could mitigate or even protect against the financial crises, which increasing capital mobility and financial globalization are thought to facilitate in emerging markets. It appears to be the case, however, that no exchange rate regime would have prevented the recent crises in the emerging market economies. Even corner solutions—which are not necessarily the best solution for all emerging market economies—would have to be supplemented by institutional reforms and innovations. In this paper, a broad range of measures has been considered; some of these are measures which countries can take at unilateral or bilateral levels; some operate at plurilateral or regional levels; and some require cooperation at the multilateral or global level.