Analysis Of A Floating Exchange Rate System

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Fixed Exchange Rate System refers to a system where the country's exchange rate is tagged to the official exchange rate of another country’s currency. This is meant to maintain a country's currency value within a tight range. It is also commonly known as a pegged exchange rate (Investopedia, 2015).
The key issue is the central banks’ propensity to fix the value of its currency below the market clearing value, due in part to the incapability to obtain the market clearing exchange rate. Thus, there will be an excess demand for the foreign currency which will lead to a balance of payment deficit (Samarasiri, 2010).
Next, a Floating Exchange Rate System refers to the system where currency is set by the foreign-exchange market through supply and demand forces relative to other currencies (Investopedia, 2015). As a result, floating exchange rates is constantly variable. Since there is minimal interference in foreign exchange market, and provided the exchange rate is free to vary to clear the discrepancies in the foreign exchange market, the monetary policy can be handled separately from the balance of payments. However, if the exchange rate volatility is high, greater stability would have to be enforced via interference from the central bank by buying or selling foreign exchange. (Samarasiri, 2010). …show more content…

This form of exchange rate system enables the market forces to work around and within a band of exchange rates. (Investopedia, 2015). This band refers to the rate at which the foreign currency will be bought by the central bank from the authorized dealers and vice versa with the foreign currency being sold to the dealers instead. Since the central bank is prepared to buy and sell the foreign currency at those rates, it is imperative that the exchange rate in the market may not move outside the band (Samarasiri,

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