Fighting Against Currency Depreciation, Macroeconomic Instability and Sudden Stops
In this paper we show that in the aftermath of a crisis, a government that changes the nominal interest
rate in response to currency depreciation can induce aggregate instability in the economy by generating
self-fulfilling endogenous cycles. In particular if a government raises the interest rate proportionally
more than an increase in currency depreciation then it induces self-fulfilling cyclical equilibria that
are able to replicate some of the empirical regularities of emerging market crises. We construct an
equilibrium characterized by the self-validation of people’s expectations about currency depreciation and
by the following stylized facts of the “Sudden Stop” phenomenon: a decline in domestic production
and aggregate demand, a significantly larger currency depreciation, a collapse in asset prices, a sharp
correction in the price of traded goods relative to non-traded goods and an improvement in the current
account deficit.