文摘
In January 2015, the Swiss National Bank announced that the hard peg of the Swiss franc against the euro will be released and that the Swiss currency should float freely. This announcement brought the Swiss franc under strong appreciation pressure. The Swiss National Bank seems to have returned within a short time to a tight peg without officially announced parity. This paper shows that currencies of countries with persistent current account surpluses and high foreign currency denominated debt, such as the Swiss franc and the Japanese yen, are under a persistent appreciation pressure. Appreciation expectations, which are triggered by official announcements of appreciations, lead into runs in the domestic currency, which make appreciation expectations self fulfilling. Multiple equilibria emerge: the appreciation of the domestic currency and the appreciation induced crisis depend on the signals of the central bank concerning its tolerance of an appreciation of the domestic currency. The phenomenon is enhanced in an environment of very expansionary monetary policies in the centres of the world monetary system. The economic policy implication is a tight peg of the Swiss franc to the euro, because a better solution is not available.
