The Papua New Guinea Kina's Fear of Floating

Abstract

Calvo and Reinhart (2002) demonstrated that there is a pervasive 'fear of floating' to be found in emerging market currencies, and that officially announced currency regimes may diverge from actual central bank practice. The Papua New Guinea kina is officially a floating currency, but there are a number of reasons why this is unlikely to be the case in practice. This analysis uses the Calvo and Reinhart method to show that, like many other emerging market 'floating' currencies, the kina more closely resembles a managed regime.

Keywords: Foreign exchange, currency behavior

JEL Classification: F31, G15