Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-gb8f7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T15:51:20.197Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

On the small discrepancies between the official and the free rate in the BLEU's dual exchange rate system

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 August 2016

Get access

Extract

Up till about 1969 little consideration was given to the BLEU's two-tier system. This situation has meanwhile changed. Since 1971, when disruptive short-term capital movements repeatedly upset the foreign exchange markets, domestic and foreign economists, both official and nonofficial ones, increasingly started investigating two-tier systems in general, and the implications of the BLEU arrangements in particular, as the ones with the longest lifetime.

While lots of good work has already been performed on the latter issue, it could nonetheless be shown that in much of it there has not been sufficiently invested in scrutinizing the official regulations themselves - with main reliance on secondary sources instead - before rationalizing their economic implications and/or building econometric models. This most often resulted in the neglect of some of the system's characteristics, which crucially add to our global understanding of the behaviour of the free exchange rate

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Université catholique de Louvain, Institut de recherches économiques et sociales 1975 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

Hoger Instituut voor de Arbeid, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven. Work on this paper started in 1972. It is based on my D. Phil. thesis to be submitted at the University of Oxford in 1976. I am indebted to many persons and institutions: to my supervisor W.M. Corden for guidance and encouragement ; to J.-P. Abraham. Sir A. Cairncross and T. Peeters for discussing a still very sketchy draft on this material in 1973; to P. De Grauwe for some comments on the final draft ; to various, present and former, staff members of the National Bank of Belgium, of the Belgo-Luxembourg Exchange Institute, and of three Belgian commerciabl banks, and, to a broker and B. Jadoul for pieces of information ; to the Centrum voor Economische Studiën of the K.U. Leuven and P. Zonderman for computer facilities in plotting graphs : and last but not least to the Belgian Ministerie van Nationale Opvoeding en Nederlandse Cultuur, the British Council, and the Florey European Studentships Fund of the Queen’s College at Oxford for financial help. Nonetheless. none of these persons or organisations bear responsibility for the facts and opinions recorded hereunder

References

REFERENCES

Abraham, J.–P. (1974), Recente ervaringen op de Belgische dubbele wisselmarkt, Voordrachtenboekjes van het Studiecentrum voor Bank– en Financiewezen, no 221, Brussels, January.Google Scholar
de Belgique, Banque Nationale, Bulletin, various monthly issues.Google Scholar
de Belgique, Banque Nationale, Rapports, various yearly issues.Google Scholar
de Spot, J. (1969), Le Régime des Changes en Belgique, Agéfi, La Belgique Financiére, September 26th.Google Scholar
Einzig, P. (1968), Leads and Lags, London, Macmillan.10.1007/978-1-349-00268-9Google Scholar
Fleming, J.M. (1971), Dual Exchange Rates for Current and Capital Transactions; A Theoretical Examination, chapter 12 in hisEssays in International Economics, London, Allen and Unwin.Google Scholar
Fleming, J.M. (1974), Dual Exchange Markets and Other Remedies for Disruptive Capital Flows, International Monetary Fund Staff Papers, March.Google Scholar
Talent, Groupe (1970), Le systéme belge du double taux de change, Cahiers Economiques de Bruxelles, 2me trimestre.Google Scholar
Gutowski, A. (1972), Flexible Exchange Rates vs. Controls, in Machlup, F. Gutowski, A., and Lutz, F.A. International Monetary Problems, Washington, American Entreprise Institute for Public Policy Research.Google Scholar
Institut Belgo–Luxembourgeois du Change, Réglementation du Change en Union Economique Belgo–Luxembourgeoise : Textes Coordonnés, various fascicules.Google Scholar
International Monetary Fund, Annual Report on Exchange Restrictions, various yearly issues.Google Scholar
National Bank of Belgium (1969), The Foreign Exchange Market in Belgium, in Aliber, R.Z.(ed.), The International Market for Foreign Exchange, New York, Praeger.Google Scholar
Martin, G. and Abraham, J.–P. (1970), Dubbele Belgische wisselkoers en internationale renteverschillen 1967–1969, Economisch-Statistische Berichten, October 14th.Google Scholar
Mayer, H.W. (1974), The Anatomy of Official Exchange–Rate Intervention Systems, Princeton Essay in International Finance, no 104. May.Google Scholar
Meade, J.E. (1951), The Balance of Payments, London, Oxford University Press.Google Scholar