The insulating properties of flexible exchange rates have long been a highly contentious issue in emerging markets—not least in Asian emerging markets. A number of recent theoretical and empirical studies question whether a trade-off exists between rigid exchange rate regimes and insulation from foreign shocks when the degree of international capital mobility is high. On the other hand, Obstfeld et al. (2017) find that countries with flexible exchange rate regimes experience less real and financial instability in the face of global financial volatility. We contribute to this empirical debate by significantly extending their analysis. Overall, our findings are broadly consistent with their results, suggesting that flexible exchange rate regimes are better at insulating emerging markets from external shocks. There are, however, a few subtle differences. In particular, we find somewhat less robust evidence that limited flexibility is enough to insulate emerging markets from shocks.

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新兴市场的汇率和绝缘

长期以来，灵活汇率的绝缘特性一直是新兴市场（尤其是亚洲新兴市场）极具争议的问题。最近的许多理论和经验研究都质疑，在国际资本流动程度很高的情况下，刚性汇率制度与避免外国冲击之间是否存在取舍。另一方面，Obstfeld等。（2017年）发现，面对全球金融动荡，具有灵活汇率制度的国家经历的实际和金融动荡较少。我们通过大大扩展他们的分析，为这一经验性辩论做出了贡献。总体而言，我们的发现与他们的结果大致相符，这表明灵活的汇率制度更能使新兴市场免受外部冲击。但是，有 一些细微的差异。特别是，我们发现证据不足的证据表明，有限的灵活性足以使新兴市场免受冲击。