"The interesting feature of the four extreme episodes reported above
is their sudden, harsh end. In each case policy was thought to be
successful, prosperity prevailed, credibility was intact or being built
up, and policy makers rode high. Then The entire strategy unraveled in
almost no time and gave way to a large realignment.Invariablyit is asked what went wrong.
Major misalignments can arise because, absenta clear and accepted
test for the right price for a currency, there is room for serious disagreement.The same is true for the stock market or in real estate. The Factors
influencing the exchange rate are diffuse and prospective, just as they
are for asset prices. Once a misalignment is in place, it is difficult to undo quickly, for both political and economic reasons. That is why it
will ultimately precipitate a collapse.
In the extreme cases discussed above, market participants differed
in their opinions of the sustainability of the policy regimes.Policymakers and much of the market had little doubt that they were sustainable,
and that reserve depletion would be short-lived. They believed (and perhaps still do) that had it not been for this or that surprising factor,
all would have been well. It was not the policy that was wrong, but the
accidental disturbance that interfered with short-termfinancing.This
interpretation is captured by the "sudden stop" in the bankers' adage
quoted at the beginning of the paper. But it is overly benign. If an exchange rate and current account position is vulnerable to disruption, then the currency is more than likely to be overvalued.
What actually goes wrong involves both the policies that created the vulnerability and the lenders who jump ship. In such situations, policy makers are invariably surprised by how the market can suddenly turn
on them, and by the extent to which they have underestimated their vulnerability. Markets, in turn, are surprised by how little liquidity
there is when all the lenders scramble to get out at the same time. The combination makes for a chaotic collapse and the disruption of finance. Moreover, because the policy regime is typically sustained by strong appeal to credibility, any action that undermines this will profoundly disorient the lenders, thus aggravating the lack of credit.
....
Why do markets keep financing a situationthat to all appearances is
vulnerable, if not outright unsustainable? Ex post this is always the question, whether in relation to the stock market, to tulip bubbles, to
real estate, or to emerging market lending. The answeris that there
are different opinions of what is happening. Moreover, there is always
a temptation to ride an unsustainable course for a little while. In fact,
the capital market was exuberantly willing to lend in the Chilean and Mexican crises. After net negative portfolio investment in 1983-89,
Latin America received an averageof $26.6 billion in portfolio capital
flows over the period 1990-94. Fora while, stock returns bore out the
wildest optimism, as table 13 shows. A dominant share of market
participants thought that the risks were small and well worth taking;
they thought that the policies were right and sustainable, and would
increasingly be vindicatedby events."