Short-run and long-run effects of exchange rate change on trade balance: Evidence from China and its trading partners

As one of largest exporting countries in the world, China has experienced a large amount of trade surpluses for the past decade. However, a growing criticism has been focused on the manipulation of Chinese Yuan (RMB) exchange rate by the Chinese government. While China implemented the exchange rate reform policy in July 2005, the question, whether its currency is undervalued remains as a debatable issue. Different from previous studies by focusing on individual trading partners, this paper tests the short-run J-Curve hypothesis and long-run trade balance effect of real exchange rate between China and its eighteen major trading partners using a panel dataset over the 2005–2009 period. We adopt the methodologies of panel cointegration test, fully modified OLS for heterogeneous cointegrated panel (panel FMOLS) and panel error correction model (panel ECM) to investigate the above examination. Our empirical results lend support to the inverted J-curve hypothesis between China and its trading partners. However, we find that a real appreciation of RMB has a decreasing long-run effect on China's trade balance in only three of the eighteen trading partners, while it has an increasing long-run effect in five of the eighteen trading partners. These mixed findings, therefore, lead to the empirical evidence that the real appreciation of RMB has no overall long-run impact on China's trade balance.     

The Japanese–U.S. trade balance and the yen: Evidence from industry data

While it is often assumed that a country's trade balance will improve in the long-run if its currency is allowed to depreciate, this is not necessarily the case for specific goods. In the short run, the opposite might even take place, as fixed quantities and rising import prices cause the trade balance to deteriorate. In this paper, we apply cointegration methodology to assess the short- and long-run impact of fluctuations in the yen–dollar real exchange rate on Japan's trade balance with the U.S. for 117 industries. We find that depreciation causes the trade balance to improve in the long-run for about one-third of Japanese industries. Most short-run effects are in the same direction, indicating a quick improvement in these industries’ trade balance, rather than a period of deterioration such as a “J-curve.”     

Exchange rate sensitivity of Japan’s bilateral trade flows

The traditional way of assessing the impact of currency depreciation on the trade balance has been to estimate the elasticity of trade volume to relative prices. To this end, most previous studies used aggregate trade data. To shy away from problems associated with using aggregate data, recent studies have relied on bilateral trade data. Since import and export price data is not available on bilateral level, this study proposes an alternative way of assessing the impact of currency depreciation on bilateral trade flows. The models are applied between Japan and her nine largest trading partners using recent advances in time-series modeling.     

US–Thailand trade at the commodity level and the role of the real exchange rate

Previous studies that have investigated the impact of real depreciation of the Thai baht on Thailand's trade flows have either used aggregate trade data between Thailand and the rest of the world, or between Thailand and its major trading partners. These studies have provided mixed results. In this paper, we disaggregate the trade flows between Thailand and its major trading partner, the US, by commodity and investigate the impact of currency depreciation on the export earnings of 118 American exporting industries and the outpayments of 42 American importing industries. While most industries are affected in the short run, the short-run results last into the long run in several small industries. The inpayments of large exporting industries and the outpayments of large importing industries are not affected. Economic activity seems to be the major long-run determinant of the performance of most industries.     

The Post‐Mao economic reform in China: A Korean view

Abstract

Previous studies that were concerned with the impact of depreciation of the ringgit on the Malaysian trade balance employed data either between Malaysia and rest of the world or between Malaysia and each of her major trading partners. Specifically, the bilateral trade balance between Malaysia and the US is shown to be insensitive to the real bilateral ringgit–dollar rate. In this article we wonder if disaggregating trade flows between Malaysia and the US by commodity could help us to discover any significant effects that the real exchange rate could have. We consider 101 industries that export from US to Malaysia and 17 industries that import from Malaysia. While majority of the industries showed short-run sensitivity to the real bilateral exchange rate, short-run effects lasted into the long run almost in half of the industries in both group.     

The J-curve Revisited: An Empirical Analysis for Canada

This paper examines exchange rate and trade data to determine whether J-curve effects have occurred for Canada in recent history. With a unique set of data on import and export volumes, the response of the trade balance and its components to exchange rate changes are determined empirically over 1981:1–2005:12 through impulse response functions. The responses have taken into account dominant long-run feedback effects, where the long-run parameters have been estimated by the Johansen cointegration technique. The results show the J-curve phenomenon does not exist for Canada. Robustness checks show the results do not change when looking at the responses over the pre-NAFTA and NAFTA periods.      

Is the J-Curve Effect Observable for Small North European Economies?

The present study tests for the J-curve for five North European countries—Belgium, Denmark, The Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden—using generalized impulse response functions. The results provide empirical support for the J-curve. Each country has an impulse response function generated from a vector error-correction model that suggests that after a depreciation, there will be a dip in the export-import ratio within the first half-year after the depreciation. The long-run export-import ratio appears to be higher than the low point of this early dip in almost all cases. Also, in most cases, the export-import ratio appears in many periods after the depreciation to be converging from below to a higher long-run equilibrium.     

The Effect of Exchange Rate on Bilateral Trade Balance: New Evidence from Malaysia and Thailand

This paper attempts to identify the major economic factors that influence the bilateral trade balances of Malaysia and Thailand with the US and Japan. To this end, an unrestricted VAR model was estimated using quarterly frequency data from 1980: I to 1996: IV. The Johansen results indicate a stable long-run relation between trade and three macro variables: exchange rate, domestic income and foreign income. The main findings of this paper are: (i) the real effective exchange rate is an important variable in the trade balance equation and devaluation improves the trade balances of both economies in the long-run; (ii) the other important variables that determine trade balance include domestic and foreign incomes; (iii) the results indicate no J-curve effect and causal run from exchange rate to trade balance, (iv) the real effects of devaluation are distributed over a period of eight to nine quarters.     

Exchange Rate Sensitivity of U.S. Trade Flows: Evidence from Industry Data

Previous research that investigated the relation between U.S. trade flows and the value of the dollar either employed trade data between the United States and the rest of the world or between the United States and her major trading partners. In this paper we use monthly import and export data from 66 industries in the United States SITC Commodity Groupings over the January 1991-August 2002 period as well as cointegration analysis and show that in the long run real depreciation of the dollar stimulates export earnings of many U.S. industries, whereas it has no significant impact on most importing industries.     

Bilateral S-curve between Japan and her trading partners

The cross-correlation function between terms of trade and trade balance has been found to resemble a pattern that is labeled the S-curve. This pattern has received weak support in some developed and less developed countries when aggregate trade data are used. Empirical regularities based on aggregate trade data may be biased since aggregation can potentially suppress some of patterns observed in trade at the bilateral levels. We try to overcome this problem by employing bilateral trade data for Japan and find strong support for the S-curve between Japan and many of her trading partners.     

Does a J-curve exist for Korea and Taiwan?

This article examines whether the trade balance of two dynamic export-oriented economies, Korea and Taiwan, exhibits a J-curve effect. The article studies both their bilateral and aggregate trade balance during the flexible exchange-rate era. When the exchange-rate coefficients are unconstrained, we demonstrate that no J-curve effect exists either for bilateral or aggregate trade balances. Several robustness checks confirm the validity of our findings. When a polynomial-distribute lag structure is imposed on exchange-rate coefficients, a J-curve is evident in some cases. The article discusses possible explanations for the general lack of evidence in favor of a J-curve, including the response of a small country's trade balance to exchange-rate changes.     

How Sensitive is U.S.-Canadian Trade to the Exchange Rate: Evidence from Industry Data

Previous research has followed four distinct paths to investigate the impact of currency depreciation on the trade balance of a country, using mostly aggregate trade data. In this paper we choose one of those paths and consider the trade between the U.S. and Canada. However, unlike previous research we disaggregate the trade data between the two countries by commodity and consider 152 industries that trade. After estimating inpayment and outpayment schedules for all 152 industries, we find that real depreciation has short-run effects on inpayments of 72 and outpayments of 53 industries. However, the short-run effects translate into the long-run effects only in 43 of inpayment models and 36 of outpayment models. Further analysis reveals that 1% real depreciation of the U.S. dollar has 1.29% positive effects on the U.S. net export earnings.     

Bilateral Trade Balances of Malaysia with Her 11 Largest Trading Partners: New Evidence from Asymmetry Cointegration

Research on the effects of exchange rate changes on the trade balance is now moving in a new direction, by investigating whether exchange rate changes have symmetric or asymmetric effects. The approach that relies upon separating depreciations from appreciations introduces nonlinearity into the adjustment process and relies upon the nonlinear ARDL approach of Shin et al. [2014. Modelling asymmetric cointegration and dynamic multipliers in a nonlinear ARDL framework, in: R. Sickels and W. Horrace (Eds), Festschrift in Honor of Peter Schmidt: Econometric Methods and Applications, 281–314 (Springer)]. When we applied this new method to the bilateral trade balances of Malaysia with each of her 11 largest partners, we found adjustment asymmetry in all models, short-run impact asymmetry effects and long-run asymmetry effects in the trade balance models between Malaysia and Asian countries.     

Does China＇s Huge External Surplus Imply an Undervalued Renminbi？

A pegged exchange rate regime has been pivotal to China's export-led development strategy. However, its huge trade surpluses and massive build up of international reserves have been matched by large deficits for major trading partners, creating acute policy concerns abroad, especially in the USA. This paper provides a straightforward conceptual framework for interpreting the effect of China's exchange rate policy on its own trade balance and that of trading partners in the context of discrepant economic growth rates. It shows how pegging the exchange rate when output is outstripping expenditure induces China's trade surpluses and counterpart deficits for its trading partners. An important corollary is that given its strictly regulated capital account, China's persistently large surpluses imply a significantly undervalued renminbi, which should gradually become more flexible.     

The South Africa-U.S. Trade and the Real Exchange Rate: Asymmetric Evidence from 25 Industries

Previous studies that assessed the effects of exchange rate changes on the trade balance of South Africa assumed that the effects are symmetric. In this paper we violate that assumption and assess the asymmetric effects of the real rand-dollar rate on the trade balance of 25 2-digit industries that trade between South Africa and the U.S. We find short-run asymmetric effects in a total of 19 industries but short-run cumulative or impact asymmetric effects only on five industries. Short-run asymmetric effects lasted into long-run asymmetric effects on 14 industries. Further analysis revealed industries that will benefit from rand depreciation and those that will be hurt from rand appreciation.     

Trade creation,trade diversion,and the general equilibrium effects of regional trade agreements: a study of the European Community–Turkey customs union

This paper presents an industry-level analysis of trade flows in order to estimate the trade effects of Turkey’s customs union with the European Community (EC). The paper is able to distinguish between trade creation and trade diversion by employing tariff data on each good to measure the impact of not only the tariff level but also the difference between tariffs applied to imports from Europe and the most-favored nation tariffs applied to imports from other non-preferential trading partners. The paper estimates the general equilibrium effects of the customs union in addition to the effects of eliminating tariffs on the EC’s exports to Turkey. It concludes that the customs union has generated more than twice as much trade creation as trade diversion but that the overall impact of the customs union has been relatively small.     

International Trade, OECD Membership, and Religion

Transaction costs in trade gravity equation are proxied by the distance that separates two trading partners, under the assumption that the distance elasticity is the same across all trading partners. We show that distance elasticity, however, critically depends on whether trading partners are industrial countries (i.e., members of the OECD) or share same religion. These heterogeneities are both statistically and economically significant. For instance, expected trade flows are the largest when an OECD member trades with a non-member and both are non-religious. Expected trade flows fall as much as by 62.9% between two non-religious, non-OECD members. Expected bilateral trade drops by 48.1% when both countries in the pair are OECD members while one is Christian and the other is Islamic. Both religion and OECD membership significantly affect the typical transaction costs implied by the gravity equation. JEL Classification Number: F13     

人民币汇率与中国贸易平衡:基于汇改后数据的实证研究

本文运用计量方法考察汇率制度改革后贸易平衡价格弹性的变化和人民币升值对中国贸易平衡的影响.主要得到以下的结论:自2005年7月人民币汇率制度改革以来,我国贸易平衡的价格弹性显著增强,汇率的价格信号机制有所加强,表明汇率制度改革使人民币汇率更好地发挥对贸易收支的调节作用;人民币升值不能显著减少中国贸易顺差,但人民币升值会改变中国与不同贸易伙伴之间的贸易平衡关系;汇率制度改革后的人民币升值对工业制成品贸易的影响要大于对初级品贸易的影响.     

Paper money but a gold debt: Italy on the gold standard

For most of the classical gold standard era, Italy was not formally committed to gold, instead the lira “shadowed” gold. The remarkable stability of the lira exchange rate raises the question of why Italy did not move to official convertibility when it could have gained gold standard benefits at a seemingly low cost. The answer to this puzzle lies in the management of the Italy’s large foreign debt. Although denominated in lire, holders of the debt had the privilege of converting their coupons into gold at the official exchange rate in Paris. This arrangement offered the government an opportunity to temporarily exploit domestic bondholders who found it difficult to circumvent the barriers to arbitrage. In times of fiscal problems, the government gained some seignorage while the lira was allowed a limited depreciation. Shadowing the official gold rate, lost some of the possible benefits of convertibility but gave the government fiscal flexibility.     

International intra-industry trade of China

International Intra-Industry Trade of China. — The purpose of this paper is to measure the extent of the international intra-industry trade of China, and to test empirically various country-specific and industry-specific hypotheses concerning the determinants of vertical and horizonal intra-industry trade between China and her major trading partners. It is revealed that China has possessed the prerequisite of intra-industry trade and that China’s intra-industry trade follows similar patterns of those in developed countries as China is moving towards a market-oriented economy. F14, O53