Economic Consequences of Pegging to the Dollar in a Multicurrency World

The paper studies the monetary mechanism of a three-country world where two large countries are engaged in floating exchange rates with each other, and a small country is pegged to one of these large countries. Three countries possess an endogenous wage determination process, so that the choice of exchange-rate regimes has real consequences. This arrangement creates serious difficulties for the small country. The paper evaluates the relative effectiveness of options for the small country, taking account of endogeneity of wage determination. Complete float of the small country and the currency basket pegging both present promising alternatives, but the complete float is likely to be best.