Korean Exchange Rate Regime Change and Its Impact on Inflation in Comparison to Japan and Australia

This paper examines the macroeconomic structural differences of the free floating exchange rate regime and the managed float exchange rate regime focusing on the Korean economy, and compares it to the two benchmark economies, Japan and Australia. Korea's shift to the free floating exchange rate regime from the managed float exchange rate regime came after the 1997 economic crisis. Korea's exchange rate policy provides a unique opportunity to study the different behaviors or roles, if any, of managed float and free floating exchange rate regimes. Based on a simple monetary model, we find that the exchange rates of Korea are more sensitive to the economic fundamentals under the free floating regime than under the managed float regime. Impulse response analysis shows that exchange rate pass-through into domestic variables, especially inflation rate, has a bigger short-term impact under the floating regime than under the managed regime. This finding is consistent with the view that the managed (or fixed) regime provides the domestic price stability necessary for the economic growth for the developing countries