Exchange Market Pressure and Monetary Policy : Asia and Latin America in the 1990s

Exchange market pressure (EMP), the sum of exchange rate depreciation and reserve outflows (scaled by base money), summarizes the flow excess supply of money in a managed exchange rate regime. Examining Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Indonesia, Korea, and Thailand, this paper finds that monetary policy affects EMP as generally expected: contractionary monetary policy helps reduce EMP. The monetary policy stance is best measured by domestic credit growth (since interest rates contain both policy- and market-determined elements). In response to higher EMP, monetary authorities boosted domestic credit growth both in Mexico (confirming previous research) and in the Asian countries.