The Causes Of Crisis Currency Instabilities

By Lela Perkins


There have been numerous cases of investors being caught off guard since the early 1990s, which leads to capital flight and runs on currencies. One may wonder what makes international financiers and currencies investors respond and act this way. They may go by their gut instinct or evaluate the minutia of an economy. Here is a look at crisis currency instabilities and what are its causes.

A currencies crisis is caused by a decline in value of a nations currencies. This value decline affects an economy negatively by leading to instabilities in exchange rates, which means that one unit of that particular currency does not buy as much as is used to in another. To put it simply, such a crisis develops as an interaction among the expectations of investors and what the expectations cause to happen.

When a potential crisis is on the verge of happening, central banks in affixed exchange rate economy can try to maintain the current rate by tapping into the country's foreign reserves, or by letting the exchange rate to undergo fluctuations. Investors may wonder how eating into foreign reserves may offer a solution. When the markets expect devaluation, offsetting the pressure set on the currencies can only be done by an increment in the interest rates.

In order to increase the rates, the central bank has to shrink the supply of money, causing an increase in demand for the currencies. This can be achieved by selling off foreign reserves in order to form an outflow of capital. When central banks sell a segment of their foreign reserves, the payment is received in form of domestic currency that it will keep out of circulation as an asset.

The propping up of the exchange rate cannot go on forever, both on a basis of declines in foreign reserves and political and economic factors such as high level of unemployment. Currencies devaluations due to fixed exchange rates increases leads to domestic goods being cheaper when compared to foreign goods.

In turn, output will be increased through boosting the demand for workers. In the short run, devaluation can raise interest rates that must be offset by central banks through a raise in foreign reserves and money supply.

Unfortunately for banks but good for citizens, investors know very well that a devaluation strategy can be used, thus building it to their expectations. If a devaluation of the currencies by the central bank is expected by the market, which would in turn increase the exchange rate, the possibility of a foreign reserves boost by an increase in aggregate demand may fail to be realized. Instead, the central bank must shrink the money supply by utilize its reserves, which will increase the domestic interest rate.

If the confidence that investors have in stability of an economy is eroded, they will attempt to get their money outside the country. This is known as capital flight. As soon as investors have sold their investments that are domestic-currencies denominated, those investments are changed into foreign currency. This causes the worsening of the exchange rates. However, predicting when a nation will run into crisis currency instabilities involves complex variables.




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