An 'Almost-Too-Late' Warning Mechanism for Currency Crises

Abstract

We propose exploiting the term structure of relative interest rates to obtain estimates of changes in the timing of a currency crisis as perceived by market participants. Our indicator can be used to evaluate the relative probability of a crisis occurring in one week as compared to a crisis happening after one week but in less than a month. We give empirical evidence that the indicator performs well for two important currency crises in Eastern Europe: the crisis in the Czech Republic in 1997 and the Russian crisis in 1998.

Keywords: currency crisis, term structure of interest rates, transition economies

JEL Classification: F31, F34, E43