Stochastic Optimal Control (SOC)-a mathematical theory concerned with minimizing a cost (or maximizing a payout) pertaining to a controlled dynamic processunder uncertainty-has proven incredibly helpful to understanding and predicting debt crises and evaluating proposed financial regulation and risk management."Stochastic Optimal Control and the U.S. Financial Debt Crisis"analyzes SOC in relation to the 2008 U.S. financial crisis, and offers a detailed framework depicting why such a methodology is best suited for reducing financial risk and addressing key regulatory issues. Topics discussed include the inadequacies of the current approaches underlying financial regulations, the use of SOC to explain debt crises and superiority over existing approaches to regulation, and the domestic and international applications of SOC to financial crises. Principles in this book will appeal to economists, mathematicians, and researchers interested in the U.S. financial debt crisis and optimal risk management."

How successful is PPP, and its extension in the monetary model, as a measure of the equilibrium exchange rate? What are the determinants and dynamics of equilibrium real exchange rates? How can misalignments be measured, and what are their causes? What are the effects of specific policies upon the equilibrium exchange rate? The answers to these questions are important to academic theorists, policymakers, international bankers and investment fund managers. This volume encompasses all of the competing views of equilibrium exchange rate determination, from PPP, through other reduced form models, to the macroeconomic balance approach. This volume is essentially empirical: what do we know about exchange rates? The different econometric and theoretical approaches taken by the various authors in this volume lead to mutually consistent conclusions. This consistency gives us confidence that significant progress has been made in understanding what are the fundamental determinants of exchange rates and what are the forces operating to bring them back in line with the fundamentals.

Stochastic Optimal Control (SOC)-a mathematical theory concerned with minimizing a cost (or maximizing a payout) pertaining to a controlled dynamic processunder uncertainty-has proven incredibly helpful to understanding and predicting debt crises and evaluating proposed financial regulation and risk management."Stochastic Optimal Control and the U.S. Financial Debt Crisis"analyzes SOC in relation to the 2008 U.S. financial crisis, and offers a detailed framework depicting why such a methodology is best suited for reducing financial risk and addressing key regulatory issues. Topics discussed include the inadequacies of the current approaches underlying financial regulations, the use of SOC to explain debt crises and superiority over existing approaches to regulation, and the domestic and international applications of SOC to financial crises. Principles in this book will appeal to economists, mathematicians, and researchers interested in the U.S. financial debt crisis and optimal risk management."

How successful is PPP, and its extension in the monetary model, as a measure of the equilibrium exchange rate? What are the determinants and dynamics of equilibrium real exchange rates? How can misalignments be measured, and what are their causes? What are the effects of specific policies upon the equilibrium exchange rate? The answers to these questions are important to academic theorists, policymakers, international bankers and investment fund managers. This volume encompasses all of the competing views of equilibrium exchange rate determination, from PPP, through other reduced form models, to the macroeconomic balance approach. This volume is essentially empirical: what do we know about exchange rates? The different econometric and theoretical approaches taken by the various authors in this volume lead to mutually consistent conclusions. This consistency gives us confidence that significant progress has been made in understanding what are the fundamental determinants of exchange rates and what are the forces operating to bring them back in line with the fundamentals.

The interrelated issues analyzed in this book are as follows. With the integration of Europe, there are free movements in goods, services, short and long term capital, and direct investment. The German mark is the key currency in Europe and its value will affect the equilibrium bilateral exchange rates of the other currencies in the European Union. It is important to examine the following issues. What have been the fundamental determinants of the real value of the mark since the period of floating? What will be the effects of German integration upon exchange rates? How can we measure whether currencies are misaligned or if exchange rates are at their equilibrium values? Are short term capital flows destabilizing and, if so, should they be discouraged through a transactions tax? Under what conditions does the formation of a regional trading bloc help or hinder the liberalization of world trade? What are the determinants of foreign direct investment made by multinational enterprises? There is a unity to this book. The authors are senior scholars who approach the subject from the theoretical, policy oriented and econometric points of view. Jerome L. Stein Contents JAMES TOBIN A Currency Transactions Tax. Why and How CHARLES A. GOODHART Discussant to Professor J. Tobin. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 JEROME L. STEIN and KARLHANS SAUERNHEIMER The Equilibrium Real Exchange Rate of Germany 13 PETER B. CLARK Concepts of Equilibrium Exchange Rates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49 G. C. LIM A Note on Estimating Dynamic Economic Models of the Real Exchange Rate. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Existing models fail to explain the large fluctuations in the real exchange rates of most currencies over the past twenty years. The Natural Real Exchange Rate approach (NATREX) taken here offers an alternative paradigm to those which focus on short-run movements of nominal eschange rates, purchasing power parity of the representative agent intertemporal optimization models. Yet it is also neo-classical in its stress upon the accepted fundamentals driving a real economy. It concentrates on the real exchange rate, and explains medium- tolong-run movements in equilibrium real exchange rates in terms of fundamental variables: the productivity of capital and social (public plus private) thrift at home and abroad. The NATREX approach is a family of growth models, each tailored to the characteristics of the countries considered. The authors explain the real international value of the US dollar relativ to the G10 countries, and the US current account. These are two large economies. The model is also applied to small economies, where it explains the real value of the Australian dollar and the Latin American currencies relative to the US dollar. This book is intended for academics and advan

This book focuses on the interaction between equilibrium real exchange rates, optimal external debt, endogenous optimal growth and current account balances, in a world of uncertainty. The theoretical parts result from interdisciplinary research between economics and applied mathematics. From the economic theory and the mathematics of stochastic optimal control the author derives benchmarks for the optimal debt and equilibrium real exchange rate in an environment where both the return on capital and the real rate of interest are stochastic variables. The theoretically derived equilibrium real exchange rate - the "natural real exchange rate" NATREX - is where the real exchange rate is heading. These benchmarks are applied to answer the following questions. * What is a theoretically based empirical measure of a "misaligned" exchange rate that increases the probability of a significant depreciation or a currency crisis? * What is a theoretically based empirical measure of an "excess" debt that increases the probability of or a debt crisis? * What is the interaction between an excess debt and a misaligned exchange rate? The theory is applied to evaluate the Euro exchange rate, the exchange rates of the transition economies, the sustainability of U.S. current account deficits, and derives warning signals of the Asian crises and debt crises in emerging markets.