Credibility, reputation, and the Mexican peso crisis

A model emphasizing the trade-off between the costs of changes of domestic interest rates and exchange rate stability is used to assess the role of credibility and reputational factors in the lead-up to the December 1994 crisis of the Mexican peso. Devaluation expectations are decomposed into the probability that the authorities do nor truly put a high weight on exchange rate stability and the probability that an exogenous shock will make a devaluation the preferred policy. Estimates indicate that prior to the peso collapse there was no significant increase in devaluation fears and no perceived shift in the authorities' policy preferences. But the increase in the differential that occurred after the devaluation may have resulted from such a shift.