Is the monetary policy rule responsive to exchange rate changes? The case of Indonesia,Malaysia, the Philippines,and Thailand

Extending Obstfeld and Rogoff (J Econ Perspect 9:73–96, 1995), Ball (Monetary policy rules, University of Chicago Press, pp. 127–144, 1999), Svensson (J Int Econ 50: 155–183, 2000), Taylor (Am Econ Rev 91: 263–267, 2001), Gali and Gertler (J Econ Perspect 21:25–46, 2007), and others, this paper finds that central banks in the Philippines and Thailand respond negatively to the current real exchange rate and positively to the lagged real exchange rate whereas central banks in Indonesia and Malaysia do not react to the current or lagged real exchange rate. For the Philippines and Thailand, the null hypothesis that the sum of the coefficients of the current and lagged real exchange rates is zero cannot be rejected at the 5% level. Central banks in these four countries respond positively to the inflation rate and the output gap, suggesting that the concept of a simple or an extended Taylor rule would apply to these countries. Monetary policy reaction functions for Indonesia and Thailand are steeper than those for Malaysia and the Philippines and would be more responsive to a change in the inflation rate.      

Exchange Rate Determination: An Application of a Monetary Model for Brazil

The goal of this paper is to test a variant of the monetary exchange rate determination model, described by Obstfeld and Rogoff (1996), for the Brazilian economy in the recent period. The model starts with the Cagan (The Journal of Political Economy, 66(4):303–328, 1958) money demand, which is complemented by the hypotheses of purchase power parity (PPP) and uncovered interest parity (UIP). We used monthly data of exchange rate, GDP, interest rate for Brazil, and U.S. interest rate and inflation as proxies for international variables. We applied cointegration tests to identify a long run relationship among the variables. The estimated error correction model offers an exchange rate determination model in the short run. Due to potential endogeneity of some variables, GMM was applied to estimate a long-run model of exchange rate determination. The forecasting results of both estimatives were compared with a random walk approach. The results point to the existence of a long and short run equilibrium Real/dollar exchange rate using the structural model, which may be the achievement of this paper.     

Optimal monetary policy for a small open economy

This paper focuses on the design of monetary policy rules for a small open economy. The model features optimizing behavior, general equilibrium and price stickiness. The real exchange rate is shown to affect the firm's real marginal cost, aggregate supply and aggregate demand. The welfare objective depends on the openness of the economy, and the optimal policy rule differs from that which obtains in a closed economy. The inflation versus output gap stabilization trade-off is caused by the real exchange rate. The implied optimal monetary policy regime is domestic inflation target coupled with controlled floating of the real exchange rate.     

A structural model of price and exchange rate dynamics in a small open economy

Conclusions A major result following from the analysis of ourstructural model of inflation under flexible exchange rates is that there is no such thing asstructural inflation in the long run. Long-run inflation rather becomes a purely monetary phenomenon if exchange rates are flexible and if on an international level functioning capital markets are postulated. While, in the light of the assumptions made in Part III, this finding is not nearly as paradoxical as it may appear at first sight, it can hardly be overemphasized considering the ongoing theoretical discussion and the empirical research on the Scandinavian approach to inflation and recalling that the Scandinavian model is basically intended to picture equilibrium dynamics.The results concerning equilibrium price and exchange rate dynamics also apply to the equilibriumlevels of prices and the exchange rate, i. e., the equilibrium price level depends exclusively on monetary factors while the equilibrium exchange rate is determined by a purchasing power parity element and the structural productivity gap component.Turning to the results of our analysis of disequilibrium dynamics, the overall picture does not change very much. Here the qualitative pattern of adjustment of both prices and the exchange rate is again completely independent of structural variables, but is exclusively determined by four adjustment coefficients. However, the particular quantitative values assumed by prices and the exchange rate during the adjustment process do indeed reflect the impact of the productivity gap.No conclusions can be derived from our model on the amount of time it takes to return to the neighbourhood of equilibrium once the economy has been subjected to some kind of external shock. A casual examination of post-1973 developments and especially the Swiss experience suggest, however, that in the case of a disturbance as, e. g., in the form of a monetary contraction (relative to the rest of the world), the economy may take so long to return to the neighbourhood of long-run equilibrium that the negative real consequences of the overvaluation of the domestic currency during the adjustment process provide a momentous rationale for short-run stabilization interventions in the foreign exchange market.We should like to thank Peter Bernholz and an anonymous referee for helpful comments on a previous version of this paper.     

Monetary and fiscal policy interactions in a post Keynesian open-economy model

Using a post Keynesian model, this study aims to analyze the stabilizing role of fiscal and monetary policies in an open economy with a managed exchange rate regime. The real exchange rate is modeled as an endogenous variable and inflation explained using the conflicting claims approach. The dynamic properties of macroeconomic equilibrium are evaluated in different regimes of fiscal and monetary policies. The main result of this study suggests that the preferred policy regime is the one in which economic authorities are complementary and fiscal policy plays an explicitly active role. In this regime, the fiscal policy must commit to the target for the rate of capacity utilization and the monetary authority must commit to the inflation target.     

Purchasing Power Parity in the Transition: The Case of the Romanian Leu Against the Dollar

This article uses co-integration analysis to test purchasing power parity for the Romanian leu against the US dollar. The fact that the purchasing power parity (PPP) hypothesis is not rejected leads to the conclusion that the real appreciation of the leu against the dollar over the transition has not been due to an appreciation of the equilibrium real exchange rate. Rather it is simply the consequence of the leu being devalued beyond the equilibrium level at the start of reform and slowly returning to its constant equilibrium real rate. There is evidence that the adjustment to equilibrium has fallen almost entirely on the price level, so that a major consequence of the excessive undervaluation has been higher inflation.     

Inflation and output in the long and short run in Turkey

This paper firstly discusses the impact of inflation on real output in different theoretical models and then investigates this impact empirically in an economy facing persistent high inflation. We find some evidence of Sidrauski’s (Am Econ Rev 57:534–544, 1967) superneutrality of money for Turkey in the long run. However, it seems that inflation affects real output negatively in the short run. These results are more compatible with a class of utility functions in which real money balances and consumption are perfect complements as Asako (Econometrica 51(5):1593–1596, 1983) elucidates.     

Is the Cyprus Pound Real Effective Exchange Rate Misaligned? A BEER Approach

Abstract

This paper investigates whether the real effective exchange rate of the Cyprus pound is misaligned by generating measures of the equilibrium rate using the Behavioral Equilibrium Exchange Rate (BEER) approach. Several measures of the equilibrium exchange rate were derived and used to check for the existence of exchange rate misalignment. The results suggest that, during the 1990s, the actual real effective exchange rate and the various equilibrium measures generated move closely together and there is no evidence of any significant and persistent misalignment. However, the empirical evidence suggests persistent overvaluation during the 1980s.     

通货膨胀、政府收益与社会福利损失

传统"Cagan规则"认为,政府通货膨胀税收益最大化的条件是,通货膨胀率应该为(货币需求关于)利率半弹性的倒数。这一规则是局部均衡条件下的结果,并未考虑通胀的实际经济效应。本文基于交易成本方法在一般均衡框架内讨论收益最大化时通货膨胀率的决定问题。该框架中收益最大化的通货膨胀率小于Ca-gan规则值,这一结论得到了中国1945—1949年恶性通胀时期经验数据的支持。经验结果还表明,相对于Cagan规则,根据交易成本方法设定的通货膨胀率尽管并没有明显提高政府的通货膨胀税收益,却大幅降低了社会福利损失。     

A stable demand for money despite financial crisis: the case of Venezuela

The demand for broad money in Venezuela is investigated over a period of financial crisis and substantial exchange rate fluctuations. The analysis shows that there exist a long-run relationship between real money, real income, inflation, the exchange rate and an interest rate differential, that remains stable over major policy changes and large shocks. The long-run properties emphasize that both inflation and exchange rate depreciations have negative effects on real money demand, whereas a higher interest rate differential has positive effects. The long-run relationship is finally embedded in a dynamic equilibrium correction model with constant parameters. These results have implications for a policy-maker. In particular, they emphasize that with a high degree of currency substitution in Venezuela, monetary aggregates will be very sensitive to changes in the economic environment.     

Foreign output shocks,monetary rules and macroeconomic volatilities in small open economies

The 2008 financial crisis is marked by the drop in output of major industrial countries which affected small open economies in various degrees. We examine the role of three different types of monetary policy rules in mitigating or exacerbating the effects of a negative foreign output shock on key macroeconomic variables of a small open economy by numerically solving a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) model. We find that compared to the Taylor rule, small open economies that follow either fixed exchange rate regime or strict inflation targeting tend to stabilize real exchange rate and inflation at the expense of substantial instability in the real economy.     

通货膨胀、汇率波动与货币政策——基于符号约束的贝叶斯VAR模型实证研究

通过构建通货膨胀形成的理论模型,本文运用符号约束的贝叶斯VAR方法探讨通货膨胀和汇率波动对产出增长的影响。结果发现：实际利率对通货膨胀和人民币升值冲击均有较大的响应,且受通货膨胀的影响更大,即稳定价格的货币政策比稳定汇率的政策更加有效;通货膨胀冲击下,实际利率在长期有所上升,但并未达到控制通货膨胀的效果,实际利率偏低阻碍了货币政策效果的发挥;人民币升值对产出增长具有较大的负面影响,对通货膨胀具有负向）中击,但由于油价上涨的原因,人民币升值并没有降低通货膨胀水平。     

Friedman meets Becker and Mulligan in a monetary neoclassical growth model

We study a neoclassical growth model with the time preference determined by resources spent on imagining future pleasures along the line of Becker and Mulligan (Q J Econ 112:729–758, 1997). We introduce money into the economy via a cash-in-advance constraint and study the effect of higher seignorage taxes or higher monetary growth rates on capital, consumption and welfare in the long run. We find that if the fraction of investment constrained by cash is smaller than a threshold, the negative-monetary-growth Friedman (The Optimum Quantity of Money and Other Essays, 1969) rule does not hold and the optimal inflation rate is positive. Calibrating our model yields a mild optimal inflation rate per annum with a switch from zero inflation to optimal inflation creating a sizable welfare gain in terms of consumption equivalence.     

A risk-driven approach to exchange rate modelling

The paper presents a new approach to exchange rate modelling that augments the CHEER model with a sovereign credit default risk as perceived by financial investors making their decisions. In the cointegrated VAR system with nine variables comprised of the short- and long-term interest rates in Poland and the euro area, inflation rates, CDS indices and the zloty/euro exchange rate, four long-run relationships were found. Two of them link term spreads with inflation rates, the third one describes the exchange rate and the fourth one explains the inflation rate in Poland. Transmission of shocks was analysed by common stochastic trends. The estimation results were used to calculate the zloty/euro equilibrium exchange rate.     

On the reduced macroeconomic volatility of the Australian economy: Good policy or good luck?

The Australian economy has experienced various changes in macroeconomic conditions over the past four decades. These changes have been associated with reduced volatility in key macroeconomic variables: CPI inflation, real GDP and the TWI measured real exchange rate. In light of this fact, my objective in this paper is to determine whether this reduction is associated with good policy or good luck. To this end, I estimate a time varying structural VAR model that is identified with theoretically consistent sign restrictions from a small open economy dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model. The primary result is that both non-systematic and systematic monetary policy have changed over the past four decades. In particular, non-systematic responses of inflation, real GDP and the exchange rate have increased since the adoption of a flexible exchange rate in 1983, while systematic responses of the cash rate to inflation have experienced various changes in intensities, exhibiting a trend towards a more passive behaviour since the 2007/08 financial crisis. Taken together, these results suggest that the reduction in macroeconomic volatility is associated with good policy.     

Performance of inflation targeting in retrospect

Both inflation and inflation expectations declined considerably in the inflation targeting countries during the past two decades. The questions of whether this decline has actually been an outcome of inflation targeting solely and whether inflation targeting has been successful in stabilizing other macroeconomic variables though remain. This study considers these questions on the basis of 16 inflation targeting countries and 21 non-targeting ones using a difference-in-difference approach. With regard to the baseline period of 1996–1999 during which neither of the groups was implementing inflation targeting, a difference-in-difference approach was employed to assess the effects of inflation targeting on inflation, output growth, real exchange rates, inflation volatility and real exchange rate volatility during moving 4-year periods between 2007 and 2015. Our estimates suggest that inflation targeting was superior in terms of harnessing inflation as well as inflation volatility. In terms of economic growth, however, inflation targeting seems to be neutral and in terms of real exchange rates it seems not to be stabilizing, if not de-stabilizing. A hybrid version of inflation targeting, namely the conventional inflation targeting augmented by an improved capacity to deliver macro-prudence as in the post-Lehman economic climate, can therefore be viewed as the best available policy alternative for the upcoming decades.     

Macroeconomic Fragility and Exchange Rate Vulnerability: A Cautionary Record of Transition Economies

The interaction between the exchange rate regime and macroeconomic stabilization in several transition economies during 1990–1996 was influenced by the persistence of high inflation rates and the initial disequilibrium between the highly undervalued nominal exchange rates in relation to their purchasing power parity estimates. Policymakers generally adopted the flexible (nominal) exchange rate regimes for manipulating real exchange rates with a view to correcting the exchange rate disequilibrium and conveying inflation control signals. The rates of real appreciation were higher in the earlier years of high inflation rates. By 1996, lower inflation rates required less currency appreciations thereby reducing the negative impact of the latter on trade competitiveness. However, the persistence of unwarranted interest rate differentials, a consequence of the domination of monetary control over prudent fiscal management, and the associated inflows of foreign funds put an upward pressure on exchange rates exacerbating trade competitiveness. The transition record suggests that innovative exchange rate arrangements can provide only a brief interval during which sound fiscal discipline needs to be put in place for controlling inflation.J. Comp. Econom.,December 1998, 26(4), pp. 621–641. Columbia University, New York, New York 10027.     

Does money have a role in the inflation process? Evidence from Australia

Inflation, defined as a sustained increase in the price level, is considered a monetary phenomenon, as it can be explained within the framework of money‐demand and money‐supply relationships. In the extant literature, money growth is shown to remain causally related to inflation across countries and over time, irrespective of the exchange rate regime and stability of the money‐demand function. Nevertheless, emerging literature suggests a diminishing role of money in the conduct of monetary policy for price stability, especially under inflation targeting. Monetary policy in Australia under inflation targeting since 1993 is an example of policy that denies a relationship between money growth and inflation. The proposition that money does not matter insofar as inflation is concerned seems odd in both theory and the best‐practice monetary policy for price stability. This paper uses annual data for the period 1970–2017 and quarterly data for the period 1970Q1–2015Q1. It deploys both the Johansen cointegration approach and the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) cointegration approach to investigate for Australia whether money, real output, prices and the exchange rate (non‐stationary variables) maintain the long‐run price‐level relationship that the classical monetary theory suggests in the presence of such stationary variables as the domestic and foreign interest rates. As expected, the empirical findings for Australia are consistent with the classical long‐run price‐level relationship between money, real output, prices and the exchange rate. The error‐correction model of inflation confirms the presence of a cointegral relationship among these variables; it also provides strong evidence of a short‐run causal relationship between money supply growth and inflation. On the basis of a priori theoretical predictions and empirical findings, the paper draws the conclusion that the monetary aggregate and its growth rate matter insofar as inflation is concerned, irrespective of the strategy of monetary policy for price stability.     

New EU member states and the Euro: economic readiness,benefits and costs

All of the new EU member states (NMSs) have made a commitment to adopt the Euro. This essay considers the countries’ economic readiness to adopt the Euro as well as the economic benefits and costs of adoption. Paper applies a method suggested by Bayoumi and Eichengreen (1997) and finds that the changes of real effective exchange rates between the Euro area and the new EU member states follow the pattern predicted by the optimum currency area theory. This finding allows the construction of the readiness for adoption index for every NMS. The tangible benefits (for NMSs) of adoption are also examined in this essay. Analyses suggest that the costs of currency exchange and hedging against the uncertainty in foreign exchange markets account for about 0.08–0.012% of the countries’ GDP. In addition, countries that adopt the Euro might expect lower inflation and interest rates. This essay also examines the possible costs of adoption. These are in the forms of the lost ability to use monetary policy tools and set the level of seigniorage. Analysis suggests that many countries had given up their independence over monetary policy even before the accession to the EU. In addition, bigger NMSs have not used seigniorage as the source of fiscal income. However, they used exchange rate flexibility to depreciate their currencies during the recent crisis.     

Foreign output shock in small open economies: A welfare evaluation of monetary policy regimes

We examine the impact of negative foreign output shocks, which entail negative demand side effects by lowering exports and positive supply side effects by lowering oil prices, on the welfare of non-oil producing, small open economies under five exchange rate and monetary policy regimes. We use a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model with parameter values calibrated for Hong Kong, Israel, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan. We find that welfare levels among the five policy regimes depend on the economy's share of oil imports in world oil consumption. Hong Kong, Singapore and Israel, which have smaller shares, maximize welfare under the Taylor rule, which targets both CPI inflation and real output. South Korea, with higher shares, and Taiwan, with more rigid prices, maximize welfare under real output targeting. CPI inflation targeting, nominal output growth targeting and fixed exchange rate regimes generate lower welfare. However, optimal monetary policy, which generates the highest welfare, gives greater weight on real output than CPI inflation.