Imported or home grown? The 1992–3 EMS crisis

Using newly assembled data on foreign exchange market intervention, we construct a daily index of exchange market pressure during the 1992–3 crisis in the European Monetary System, allowing us to pinpoint when and where the crisis was most severe. Our analysis focuses on a neglected factor in the crisis: the role of the weak dollar in intra-EMS tensions. We provide new evidence of the contribution of a falling dollar-Deutschmark exchange rate to pressure on EMS currencies.