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Concept
Floating exchange rate
Summary
In macroeconomics and economic policy, a floating exchange rate (also known as a fluctuating or flexible exchange rate) is a type of exchange rate regime in which a currency's value is allowed to fluctuate in response to foreign exchange market events. A currency that uses a floating exchange rate is known as a floating currency, in contrast to a fixed currency, the value of which is instead specified in terms of material goods, another currency, or a set of currencies (the idea of the last being to reduce currency fluctuations).
In the modern world, most of the world's currencies are floating, and include the most widely traded currencies: the United States dollar, the euro, the pound sterling, the Swiss franc, the Japanese yen, the Indian rupee, and the Australian dollar. However, even with floating currencies, central banks often participate in markets to attempt to influence the value of floating exchange rates. The Canadian dollar has not seen interference by the Canadian national bank with its price since 1988. The US dollar also sees very little change of its foreign reserves. By contrast, Japan and the UK central banks intervene to a greater extent, and India has medium-range intervention by its national bank, the Reserve Bank of India.
From 1946 to the early 1970s, the Bretton Woods system made fixed currencies the norm; however, during 1971, the US government decided to discontinue maintaining the dollar exchange at 1/35 of an ounce of gold and so its currency was no longer fixed. After the end of the Smithsonian Agreement in 1973, most of the world's currencies followed suit. However, some countries, such as most of the Arab states of the Persian Gulf region, fixed their currency to the value of another currency, which has been associated more recently with slower rates of growth. When a currency floats, quantities other than the exchange rate itself are used to administer monetary policy (see open-market operations).
Some economists believe that in most circumstances, floating exchange rates are preferable to fixed exchange rates.
Official source
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