The emerging market dilemma

From an account of the 1930s:

A particularly destabilizing aspect [during the crisis] was the tendency of fears about the soundness of banks and expectations of exchange-rate devaluations to reinforce each other...  An element that the two type of crises had in common was the so-called "hot money," short-term deposits held by foreigners in domestic banks.  On one hand, expectations of devaluation induced outflows of the hot-money deposits (as well as flight by domestic depositors), which threatened to trigger general bank runs.  On the other hand, a fall in confidence in a domestic banking system (arising, for example, from the failure of a major bank) of ten led to flight of short-term capital from the country, draining reserves ....  Other than abandoning the parity altogether, central banks could do little in the face of banking and exchange-rate crises, as the former seemed to demand easy money policies while the latter required monetary tightening.

Include corporates along with domestic banks among the affected entities, change the language to take into account that what is at stake is not a draining of reserves but uncontrolled currency depreciation, and you have a pretty good description of the dilemma faced by most EMs at the moment.

The author of the above lines?  Why, Ben Bernanke himself...

Comments

[paine]

we have two tools we can use here in the north
keynes and his fiscal deficits
and if it comes to it
lerner and his mark up market

the job of the north is damn the trade leaks and full speed ahead
onto hyper employment thru a trade gap ignoring
surge in gub spending

the anglo american 30's was a not just a story
of three stoogery
30-32

but also of too little too late
in 33-39

looks like we may do that again

[paine]

in a globe without global institutions
come a crsisis
its every rich nation for itself
paradoxically
looking inward for a global solution
was the great insight of keynes

north country protectionism and consequent contracting international trade
can be trumped by
north country deficit spending
so long as its bold enough long enough
and peaceful enough

[Dani Rodrik]

"looking inward for a global solution
was the great insight of keynes"

well put paine!