The case of Azerbaijan serves to study the adequacy of exchange-rate policy in a resource-rich economy. This paper analyses the behavior of Azerbaijan’s external accounts over the past twenty years. Declining oil prices made an existing exchange-rate peg unsustainable and led to a large devaluation in 2015. Since then, the current account balance has improved, but by less than expected. We use the EBA-Lite method to derive regression-based estimates of the equilibrium real exchange rate, and relate misalignments to measures of “policy gaps”. Our findings suggest that only a few years after the devaluation, Azerbaijan’s currency has once more become overvalued. Moreover, the equilibrium real exchange rate is volatile and hardly compatible with a long-run exchange rate peg. Exchange rate policy should try to accommodate shifts in the fundamental determinants such as relative productivity and real oil prices.
Capital Controls or Real Exchange Rate Policy? A Pecuniary Externality Perspective