Economic Resilience with an Exchange Rate Peg: the Barbados Experience, 1985-2000

This paper discusses the institutional arrangements for exchange rate targeting in Barbados and the critical role they played in the policy response to its balance of payments crisis of 1991-92. The framework featured ongoing cooperation between the central bank and the Ministry of Finance, and the use of a forecast model which highlighted the size of fiscal adjustment needed to secure foreign reserves adequate to maintain the exchange rate peg.