Causal relations between nominal exchange rates and monetary fundamentals in Central and Eastern European countries

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the causal relations between nominal exchange rates and monetary fundamentals. The analysis is conducted using panel quarterly data from the period 2001–12 for Central and Eastern European countries (including Turkey) with relatively flexible exchange rate regimes. The paper reconnects the empirical literature on exchange rates in Central and Eastern European countries with the most recent findings on exchange rate determination in advanced economies. Kóyna's approach, which accounts for linkages between countries, is used in the study. The main findings indicate the existence of causal relations running from both nominal exchange rates to monetary fundamentals and in the opposite direction as well as the existence of a relatively strong link between exchange rates and differentials in the relative price of non‐tradables.     

Cross-country evidence on the relation between stock prices and the current account

This article explores the relation between stock prices and the current account for 17 Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries in 1980–2007. A panel Vector Autoregressive (VAR) model is used to compare the effects of stock price shocks to those originating from monetary policy and exchange rates. While monetary policy shocks have little effects, shocks to stock prices and exchange rates have sizeable effects. A 10% contraction in stock prices improves the current account by 0.3% after 2 years. Hence a channel – in addition to the traditional exchange rate channel – is found through which external balance for an OECD country with a current account imbalance can be restored.     

Exchange rates and fundamentals: A bootstrap panel data analysis

This study attempts to re-examine the Granger non-causality from exchange rates to observed fundamentals based on the present value model of Engel and West (2005). To this end, we employ the bootstrap panel Granger non-causality analysis, which allows us to untangle the causal nexus between exchange rates and fundamentals in panel data. Among the main results, it is found that the null hypothesis of no cross-sectional dependence across the members of the panel is strongly rejected, indicating that the bootstrap critical value is required in conducting the panel Granger non-causality test. The null hypothesis of Granger non-causality running from the fundamentals to exchange rates is significantly rejected, implying that the monetary approach of exchange rate determination is a useful benchmark to understand the evolution of the exchange rate. Empirical evidences also show that exchange rates Granger-case the fundamentals, supporting the view that exchange rates are determined as the present value that depends in part on observed fundamentals.     

Capital Flows Adjustment Policy in Slovenia: Assessment of Design and Efficiency

During the last decade many Central and East European (CEE) countries experienced strong foreign capital inflows. Slovenia was one of them. Sources of inflows in Slovenia changed radically, even though privatisation-driven inflows were absent, in contrast to other CEE countries. Since such inflows could have significant adverse effects on the performance of the economy, some policy measures were taken. This article presents an empirically tested assessment of policy for adjustment to surges in capital flows during the last decade. Speculative reversals, a decline in external competitiveness, exchange rate appreciation, loss of control over the monetary base and inflation are just some of the detrimental effects that can be provoked by surges in capital flows if the economy suffers from fundamental sectoral deficiencies. Empirical results indicated that Slovenia quite successfully mitigated the listed effects of excessive foreign exchange inflows. Efficient combination of direct and indirect adjustment methods succeeded in preventing the still vulnerable economy from suffering a major financial crisis and nominal currency appreciation (which was not the case in some other CEE countries) although there was some real appreciation.     

Monetary Shocks and Real Exchange Rate Hysteresis: Evidence from the G-7 Countries

Long-run monetary neutrality specifies that nominal disturbances do not affect long-run real exchange rates. However, the "over depreciation" of the US dollar in the late 1980s, after its strong appreciation earlier in the decade, suggested to a number of observers that nominal disturbances alter long-run real exchange rates; that is, money supply shocks entail real exchange rate hysteresis. Using data from the G-7 countries and the post-1973 float, the paper measures the long-run effects of relative money supply disturbances on real US dollar exchange rates. Little evidence of hysteretic monetary policy effects is found.     

Monetary Policy in the Open Economy Revisited: Price Setting and Exchange-Rate Flexibility

This paper develops a welfare-based model of monetary policy in an open economy. We examine the optimal monetary policy under commitment, focusing on the nature of price adjustment in determining policy. We investigate the implications of these policies for exchange-rate flexibility. The traditional approach maintains that exchange-rate flexibility is desirable in the presence of real country-specific shocks that require adjustment in relative prices. However, in the light of empirical evidence on nominal price response to exchange-rate changes—specifically, that there appears to be a large degree of local-currency pricing (LCP) in industrialized countries—the expenditure-switching role played by nominal exchange rates may be exaggerated in the traditional literature. In the presence of LCP, we find that the optimal monetary policy leads to a fixed exchange rate, even in the presence of country-specific shocks. This is true whether monetary policy is chosen cooperatively or non-cooperatively among countries.     

Transmission of monetary policy and exchange rate shocks under foreign currency lending

This paper analyses the differences in reaction of domestic and foreign currency lending to monetary and exchange rate shocks, using a panel VAR model estimated for the three biggest Central and Eastern European countries (Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary). Our results point toward a drop in domestic currency loans and an increase of foreign currency credit in reaction to monetary policy tightening in Poland and Hungary, suggesting that the presence of foreign currency debt weakens the transmission of monetary policy. A currency depreciation shock leads to an initial decline in foreign currency lending, but also in loans denominated in domestic currency as central banks react to a weaker exchange rate by increasing the interest rates. However, after several quarters, credit in foreign currency accelerates, indicating that borrowers start using it to substitute for depressed domestic currency lending.     

Macroeconomic Policy Making,Exchange Rate Adjustment and Current Account Imbalances in Emerging Markets

Given a series of crisis events after 2007 the discussion about the adjustment channels of current account imbalances has been revived. We examine the role of exchange rates vs macroeconomic policies as determinants of current accounts for a set of 86 mainly emerging market economies between 1990 and 2013 to identify adjustment channels for global imbalances. We find that nominal exchange rates are not the main determinant of current account positions. Instead, depending on the region, monetary and/or fiscal policies are identified as the main driving force of current accounts. For East Asia and the oil exporting countries sterilization policies, i.e. relatively tight monetary policies, are the main determinants. In contrast for many European periphery countries fiscal policy stances are at the core of current account positions. Only for the Latin American countries does the exchange rate play a significant role as determinant of current account positions.     

Monetary policy and exchange market pressure–evidence from sub-Saharan Africa

The purpose of this study was to assess the impact of monetary policy on foreign exchange market pressure (EMP) in developing country contexts for some selected countries in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) and to measure the ability of monetary policy to significantly address currency pressures that arise from trading on the global market. This study was motivated by the fact that most of the SSA countries are developing economies that have negative net export positions and stand to lose significantly from consistently deteriorating foreign exchange position. The study, therefore, employs a dynamic panel model to test the hypothesis that a tighter monetary policy stance lends strength to a currency and vice versa, using 20 SSA economies for the period from 1991 to 2010. This study finds a negative and significant relationship between monetary policy and EMP, implying an easing of EMP in the face of contractionary monetary policy. The findings also point to significant relations between aggregate output, levels of public debt, the current account balance, terms of trade and EMP. Findings of this study have important implications as regards the policy direction on exchange rate and currency management.     

A wavelet decomposition approach to crude oil price and exchange rate dependence

This paper studies the relationship between oil prices and US dollar exchange rates using wavelet multi-resolution analysis. We characterized the oil price–exchange rate relationship for different timescales in an attempt to disentangle the possible existence of contagion and interdependence during the global financial crisis and analyze possible lead and lag effects. For crude oil prices and a range of currencies, we show that oil prices and exchange rates were not dependent in the pre-crisis period; however, we did find evidence of contagion and negative dependence after the onset of the crisis. Additionally, we found that oil prices led exchange rates and vice versa in the crisis period but not in the pre-crisis period. These findings have important implications for risk management, monetary policies to control oil inflationary pressures and fiscal policy in oil-exporting countries.     

Measuring the natural yield curve

We generalize the concept of the natural rate of interest (Laubach and Williams, 2003; Woodford, 2003) by defining and estimating the natural yield curve (NYC) – the term structure of natural interest rates. Our motivation stems i.a. from the observation that at times when central banks attempt to directly affect long-term interest rates (e.g. via quantitative easing) the gap between the short-term real and natural rate is no more a good indicator of the monetary policy stance. We estimate the NYC on US data, document its main properties and show i.a. that in the period 2008 to 2011 the NYC allows to better capture the US monetary policy stance than the short-term natural rate.     

Time-inconsistency and expansionary business cycle theories: What does matter for the central bank independence–inflation relationship?

Since the seminal paper of Kydland and Prescott (1977), a central bank’s independence (CBI) has been considered an important institutional condition for achieving lower inflation. Recently, however, this long-held belief has been challenged. This paper investigates the relationship between CBI and inflation for a large sample (91 countries) covering the period from 1990 to 2014. We follow the previous literature by considering differences across national monetary regimes in explaining this relationship. Our approach also traces the sources of the inflationary phenomenon. Using panel data and the turnover indicator as a proxy for CBI, we offer two main findings. First, we identify the role of exchange rate regimes in the dynamic between inflation and CBI. Second, our results show that only intermediate and flexible exchange rate regimes are appropriate in this relationship. This finding is explained by the level of CBI, which is very low for countries with a fixed exchange rate policy and low income levels. For policymakers, our results highlight the importance of the choice of monetary regime in controlling inflation in the presence of CBI. For public agents, our results provide guidelines for formulating expectations.     

The role of exchange rate in inflation targeting: the case of Turkey

ABSTRACT

The role of the exchange rates in emerging market economies that have adopted inflation targeting (IT) is a critical and contentious issue in the relevant literature. This article investigates whether an exchange rate-augmented Taylor rule describes the Central Bank of Republic of Turkey’s (CBRT) monetary policy. Covering the period from 2002:1 to 2017:8 it also explores possible nonlinearities in the reaction function of the CBRT by employing a Threshold Vector Autoregressive (TVAR) model. The linear estimation of the model highlighted the importance of the exchange rate in monetary policy under IT. The results of the nonlinear model indicate that the stance of monetary policy was asymmetric with respect to exchange rate movements during the conventional IT period. However, the asymmetric monetary policy stance disappeared in the aftermath of the Global Financial Crisis. Increasing considerations of financial stability undermined the asymmetric policy stance of the CBRT in the post-crisis period.     

Monetary Policy in the Aftermath of Currency Crises: The Case of Asia

The paper evaluates monetary policy and its relationship with the exchange rate in the five Asian crisis countries. The findings are compared with previous currency crises in recent history. It is found that there is no evidence of overly tight monetary policy in the Asian crisis countries in 1997 and early 1998. There is also no evidence that high interest rates led to weaker exchange rates. The usual tradeoff between inflation and output when raising interest rates suggested the need for a softer monetary policy in the crisis countries to combat recession. However, in some countries, corporate balance sheet considerations suggested the need to reverse overly depreciated currencies through firmer monetary policy.     

Is inflation targeting or the fixed exchange rate more effective for attracting FDI into developing countries?

This article investigates which monetary policy regime – inflation targeting or the fixed exchange rate – is more effective for attracting FDI inflows into developing countries. Using propensity score matching and the difference-in-differences estimator, we find no evidence that adopting an inflation targeting regime would be more effective than adopting a fixed exchange rate, and vice versa, in encouraging FDI inflows.     

Evidence on the sectoral monetary transmission process under a fixed exchange rate regime

Traditional macroeconomic models suggest that monetary policy changes are largely ineffective in fixed exchange rate economies. However, Edwards and Végh (1997) present a model that shows this might not be the case, as a tightening in monetary policy raises financial costs faced by firms and therefore lowers real wages and, by extension, consumption. This paper empirically tests this hypothesis using data on a country with one of the longest running fixed exchange rate regimes (1975–present). The results of the study confirm the theoretical predictions of Edwards and Végh, but they also show that the propagation of nominal shocks in fixed exchange rate systems is comparatively slower than in countries with a more flexible exchange rate regime.     

Do natural disasters affect monetary policy? A quasi-experiment of earthquakes

This study explores whether the economic consequences of earthquakes affect the policy interest rate set by the central bank. The direction of this effect is not immediately clear beforehand since earthquakes create a classic monetary policy dilemma: how to accommodate the real shock in the short-run with the objective of anchoring inflation when these two competing objectives demand opposite policy actions. One can therefore argue that the question of whether, and if so, in which direction natural disasters influence monetary policy is ultimately an empirical one. For this purpose, I estimate a dynamic panel model including about 400 major earthquakes from about 85 countries that occurred between 1960 and 2015. The key findings of this study clearly point out that on average the short-run policy interest rate falls in the first year after the earthquake. This result implies that monetary authorities prioritize short-run economic recovery above price stability. However, this interest rate effect is not the same across countries. It turns out that central banks that have a specific policy target, such as a fixed exchange rate, are more likely to raise the interest rate in the period following a disaster to fight the inflationary pressure. In turn, monetary authorities that have much freedom in their policy decisions are more inclined to lower the interest rate to stimulate economic recovery.     

The monetary approach to exchange rates in the CEECs1

A panel dataset for six Central and Eastern European countries (Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia) is used to estimate the monetary exchange rate model with panel cointegration methods, including the Pooled Mean Group estimator, the Fully Modified Least Square estimator and the Dynamic Least Square estimator. The monetary model is able to convincingly explain the long‐run exchange rate relationships of a group of CEECs, particularly when this is supplemented by a Balassa–Samuelson effect. Our estimated long‐run monetary equations are used to compute equilibrium exchange rates. Finally, we discuss the implications for the accession of selected countries to the European Economic and Monetary Union.     

Differences in long run exchange rate pass-through into import prices in developing countries: An empirical investigation

This paper investigates the exchange rate pass-through into import prices in a sample of 24 developing countries over the period from 1980 to 2003. We estimate a pass-through equation determined by a combination of the nominal exchange rate, the price of the competing products, the exporter's costs and demand conditions. We adopt non-stationary panel estimation techniques and tests for cointegration. In the long run, homogeneity of pass-through rates across countries can be rejected. Moreover, we show that most of these differences in exchange rate pass-through into import prices are due to three macroeconomics determinants: exchange rate regimes, trade barriers and inflation regimes.     

货币政策冲击、外汇干预与汇率 变动的同期与动态关联研究

本文采用SVAR模型以及2005年7月至2011年12月的月度数据，研究了2005年的新汇率改革之后，我国货币政策冲击、外汇干预与汇率间的动态关联。主要发现与结论如下：在货币政策冲击、外汇干预与汇率三者的同期博弈中，外汇干预不能即刻影响同期汇率。利率的上升及广义货币供应量的变动均会对同期名义有效汇率造成一定影响，但不太显著。在三者的动态博弈中，外汇干预是非冲销和有效性得到验证，外汇干预信号的假设可以成立。此外，即使利率的变动并不针对汇率，却带来汇率的大幅波动。名义有效汇率的上升可以有效抑制消费价格指数（CPI）的提高，并且数量型货币政策容易造成CPI的反弹。本文针对研究结论提出了一些政策建议。