Interest Rate Flexibility and the Open Economy*

The objective of the paper is to analyze the importance of institutional changes in the financial system for the efficacy of monetary policy and in particular for the connection between the balance of payments (capital account) and monetary policy. Particular institutional developments studied include the emergence of certificates of deposit and the removal of interest rate ceilings in 1973. The result established, using a general equilibrium model, is that the degree to which transactions in the capital account of the balance of payments offset a domestic monetary expansion is greater in a regime of market-determined interest rates than in a regime of administered rates.