Exchange rate volatility,international trade and labour demand

The purpose of this study is to assess under what conditions exchange rate volatility generates a positive effect on an exporting firm’s labour demand. As the exchange rate volatility increases, so does the value of the export option, provided that firms are flexible with respect to international trade. Higher volatility increases the potential gains from trade and can increase the demand for labour. The firm’s trade flexibility can be interpreted as a real hedging strategy when financial markets are incomplete. In many newly industrializing countries and emerging economies financial markets are imperfect or risk sharing markets are just starting to develop at a rather slow pace.     

A Quantitative Assessment of the Role of Incomplete Asset Markets on the Dynamics of the Real Exchange Rate

I develop a two-country New Keynesian model with capital accumulation and incomplete international asset markets that provides novel insights on the effect that imperfect international risk-sharing has on international business cycles and RER dynamics. I find that business cycles appear similar whether international asset markets are complete or not when driven by a combination of non-persistent monetary shocks and persistent productivity (TFP) shocks. In turn, international asset market incompleteness has sizeable effects if (persistent) investment-specific technology (IST) shocks are a main driver of business cycles. I also show that the model with incomplete international asset markets can approximate the RER volatility and persistence observed in the data, for instance, if IST shocks are near-unit-root. Hence, I conclude that the nature of shocks, the extent of financial integration across countries and the existing limitations on asset trading are central to understand the dynamics of the real exchange rate and the endogenous international transmission over the business cycles.     

Exchange Rate Regimes: Middling Through

Abstract

The appropriate exchange rate regime, in the context of integration of currency markets with financial markets and of large international capital flows, continues to be a policy dilemma. It is found that the majority of countries are moving towards somewhat higher exchange and lower interest rate volatility. Features of foreign exchange (forex) markets could be partly motivating these choices. A model with noise trading, non-traded goods and price rigidities shows that bounds on the volatility of the exchange rate can lower noise trading in forex markets; decrease fundamental variance and improve real fundamentals in an emerging market economy (EME); and give more monetary policy autonomy. Central banks prefer secret interventions where they have an information advantage or fear destabilizing speculation. But in the model discussed in this article, short-term pre-announced interventions can control exchange rate volatility, pre-empt deviations in prices and real exchange rates, and allow markets to help central banks achieve their targets. The long-term crawl need not be announced. In conclusion, the regime's applicability to an EME is explored.     

Volatility in International Financial Market Issuance: The Role of the Financial Center

We study the pattern of volatility of gross issuance in international capital markets since 1980. We find several short-lived episodes of high volatility. Over the long run, however, volatility has declined, suggesting that international financial integration has not made financial markets more erratic. We use VAR analysis to examine the determinants of the time-varying pattern of volatility, focusing in particular on the role of financial centers. Our results suggest that a significant portion of the decline in volatility of issuance in international capital markets can be explained by the reduction in the volatility of US interest rates.     

Does exchange rate volatility deter Japan-China trade? Evidence from pre- and post-exchange rate reform in China

This paper is an empirical investigation of the effect of RMB-JPY volatility on Japan-China trade with a special emphasis on the impacts of the reform of the RMB exchange rate regime implemented on July 21, 2005. We estimated two types of volatility measures (one based on the ARCH model and the other the usual standard deviation) utilizing daily data from Jan. 2002 through Dec. 2011 and examined both short-run and long-run effects of this volatility on exports of each country to the other with an ARDL approach. The results indicate that Japan's exports to China are not affected by the exchange rate volatility, but China's exports to Japan are negatively influenced during the reform period. Furthermore, the level of the exchange rate has no influence on Japanese exports, but it has a significant impact on Chinese exports. This asymmetric result may be due to differences in the depth of financial markets and in the maturity of exporters of the two countries.     

Financial Openness and Macroeconomic Instability in Emerging Market Economies

This paper shows how the macroeconomic instability that affects more financially open emerging economies can be explained in terms of imperfect international financial integration. The analytic tool used is a stochastic dynamic equilibrium model. The model, based on a small open economy, is calibrated to Malaysia. International financial relations are characterized by the presence of a borrowing constraint, that amplifies the volatility of exogenous shocks. Impulse response and simulation analyses are conducted. Main result is that, in presence of international financial frictions, greater access to international liquidity can cause high short-run macroeconomic instability.     

东亚金融一体化程度研究

本文通过使用汇率波动率、人均消费增长率的相关度、未抛补的利率平价偏差、双边贸易强度、利率相关度这五个指标来反映中国、日本、韩国以及中国香港、中国台湾任意两个经济体之间金融一体化的程度,并采用主成分分析的方法计算出了任意两个经济体之间金融一体化程度的大小。最后,本文依照分析结果结合目前东亚金融合作现状、东亚经济体面临的国际国内经济环境提出了促进东亚金融一体化的政策建议。     

Surfing the waves of globalization: Asia and financial globalization in the context of the trilemma

Using the “trilemma indexes” developed by Aizenman et al. (2010) that measure the extent of achievement in each of the three policy goals in the trilemma—monetary independence, exchange rate stability, and financial openness—we examine how policy configurations affect macroeconomic performances, with focus on the Asian economies. We find that the three policy choices matter for output volatility and the medium-term level of inflation. Greater monetary independence is associated with lower output volatility while greater exchange rate stability implies greater output volatility, which can be mitigated if a country holds international reserves (IR) at a level higher than a threshold (about 20% of GDP). Greater monetary autonomy is associated with a higher level of inflation while greater exchange rate stability and greater financial openness could lower the inflation rate. We find that trilemma policy configurations affect output volatility through the investment or trade channel depending on the openness of the economies. Our results indicate that policy makers in a more open economy would prefer pursuing greater exchange rate stability while holding a massive amount of IR. Asian emerging market economies are found to be equipped with macroeconomic policy configurations that help the economies to dampen the volatility of the real exchange rate. These economies’ sizeable amount of IR holding appears to enhance the stabilizing effect of the trilemma policy choices, and this may help explain the recent phenomenal buildup of IR in the region.     

信息、政策冲击和中国股票、债券及外汇市场一体化——基于AG-DCC模型的金融市场动态相关性分析

本文运用Cappiello et al．（2006）提出的AG—DCC模型对中国金融市场的研究发现,中国股票、债券和外汇市场间存在明显的动态相关性 ,虽然“正向冲击”和“负向冲击”对金融市场波动并不产生明显的非对称效应,但对市场间动态相关性有着显著的影响,而且信息和政策冲击反映在动态相关性的结构变化上。最后,用平均动态相关性作为一体化指标对中国金融市场的考察发现,相对于欧盟市场间,中国股票市场一体化程度相当高,但股票和债券、股票和外汇以及债券和外汇市场间的一体化程度有待提高。     

Home-product bias, capital mobility, and macroeconomic volatility

This paper uses a dynamic general equilibrium two-country optimizingmodel to analyse the consequences of international capital mobilityfor macroeconomic volatility. To this end, the dynamic macroeconomiceffects of a monetary policy, a fiscal policy, and a labor supplyshock are analysed. Simulations are used to analyse the implicationsof changes in the degree of capital mobility for the propagationof shocks. The simulation results obtained for a bond economyare compared with the simulation results obtained for a complete-marketeconomy. It is shown that allowing for a home-product bias inpreferences has a number of interesting implications for theway changes in international capital mobility and in the structureof international financial markets affect how shocks propagatethrough an open economy.     

Vertical Trade,Exchange Rate Pass-Through,and the Exchange Rate Regime

We compare the welfare of different combinations of monetary and currency policies in an open-economy macroeconomic model that incorporates two important features of many small open economies: a high level of vertical international trade and a high degree of exchange rate pass-through. In this environment, a small economy prefers a fixed exchange rate regime over a flexible regime, while the larger economy prefers a flexible exchange rate regime. There are two main causes underlying our results. First, in the presence of sticky prices, relative prices adjust through changes in the exchange rate. Multiple stages of production and trade make it more difficult for one exchange rate to balance the whole economy by adjusting several relative prices simultaneously throughout the vertical chain of production and trade. More specifically, there is a tradeoff between delivering an efficient relative price between home and foreign final goods and delivering an efficient relative price between home and foreign intermediate goods. Second, because the small economy faces a high degree of exchange rate pass-through under a flexible regime, it suffers from a lack of efficient relative prices in vertical trade. The larger economy, however, does not face this problem because its level of exchange rate pass-through is low.     

外部冲击下的中国与世界经济波动协同性研究

本文通过实证分析表明:在样本期内,中国与各国经济波动的相关系数随时间变动较大。进一步使用面板数据对经济协同性演变背后的动因进行了考察,结果表明:双边贸易程度和金融一体化程度对经济协同性的影响显著为正,而产业内贸易的影响为负;中国与各国之间的货币政策协调程度、财政政策协调程度以及汇率波动程度也对经济波动协同性有一定影响。     

Effect of exchange rate risk on intra-EC trade

Summary The smooth development of the EMS towrds an exchange rate system with fixed exchange rates among its member countries recently came to an abrupt (temporary) end. This raises the question whether exchange rate volatility is damaging to international trade. So far, it has remained an open empirical question whether exchange rate variability has the presumed negative effects. This article shows that the exports of five countries participating in the ERM have substantially benefited from the diminische exchange rate risk in the period from 1979 up to and including 1990. Contrary to former empirical studies, which deal with figures for total trade or total trade or total manufactures, the analysis here has been conducted for exports broken down by type of product. The study suggests that a more disaggregated analysis, with respect to products or sectors, might be a fruitful way of identifying the effects of exchange rate volatility on international trade.     

Dynamic Links Between Unexpected Exchange Rate Variation, Prices, and International Trade

This paper investigates dynamic interrelations between exchange rate uncertainty, international trade, and trading competitiveness in prices, using UK data. The empirical results derived from vector autoregressive (VAR) models show that a shock to exchange rate volatility negatively affects trade volumes, and such negative effects are greater than the effects on trade price levels. JEL Classification Numbers: F14, F31, F41     

货币互换协议、金融市场与中国对外直接投资

基于2003-2018年169个国家的面板数据,文章利用多期双重差分方法探讨了货币互换协议对我国对外直接投资规模与密集度的影响,并通过PSM-DID方法和证伪检验对模型的稳健性进行验证。在此基础上,运用中介效应和调节效应检验方法对货币互换政策的金融市场作用机制进行分析。研究发现,货币互换协议对我国OFDI规模与密集度均有显著积极影响;预期汇率风险是货币互换协议促进我国OFDI的重要影响机制,中介传导而非调节效应是主要影响渠道,而利率市场的影响机制尚未发挥作用。在经济全球化和复杂的国际形势下,这一研究对我国进一步推动国家间金融领域深化合作和推进人民币国际化以畅通国内国际双循环具有重要参考价值。     

Exchange Rate Volatility, Nominal Rigidities, and Persistent Deviations from PPP

It is shown how nominal exchange rate volatility can cause persistent deviations in the real exchange rate. The key to nominal rigidities is a capital market imperfection implying that agents cannot hedge perfectly against consumption risks. As a consequence, nominal changes have real effects by both affecting the ex post real purchasing power of savings and by affecting the ex ante incentives in savings and labor supply. The consequences of exogenous changes in the nominal exchange rate are considered in an OLG version of a two sector small open economy with competitive product and labor markets.J. Japan. Int. Econ.,December 1997,11(4), pp. 584–609. Department of Economics, University of Aarhus, 8000 Aarhus, Denmark.     

The effect of exchange rate volatility on international trade in East Asia

In this paper, we empirically investigate the relationship between exchange rate volatility and international trade, focusing on East Asia. Our findings are summarized as follows: first, intra-East Asian trade is discouraged by exchange rate volatility more seriously than trade in other regions. Second, one important source of the discouragement is that intermediate goods trade in international production networks, which is quite sensitive to exchange rate volatility compared with other types of trade, occupies a significant fraction of East Asian trade. Third, the negative effect of the volatility is greater than that of tariffs and smaller than that of distance-related costs in East Asia.     

中国贸易收支对汇率波动的敏感性分析——基于不同贸易模式的比较研究

本文在理论分析基础之上,通过构建计量模型,利用1994~2009年的季度数据,从实证角度比较分析了不同贸易模式下中国贸易收支对汇率波动敏感性的差异性,结果表明,其敏感性在产品内贸易模式下较之传统产业间和产业内贸易模式下更低。由于中国持续性贸易顺差正是中国融入产品内国际分工体系所致,所以人民币升值并不是解决中国贸易顺差的合理之道。本文研究同时发现,人民币汇率波动对内资企业冲击较之外资企业更大。据此本文认为,尽可能维持人民币汇率稳定,通过攀升产品内分工高端价值链、优化贸易结构、鼓励企业"走出去"等,对于缓解中国贸易顺差更为可行。     

What Makes Currencies Volatile? An Empirical Investigation

Real effective exchange rate volatility is examined for 90 countries using monthly data from January 1990 to June 2006. Volatility decreases with openness to international trade and per capita GDP, and increases with inflation, particularly under a horizontal peg or band, and with terms-of-trade volatility. The choice of exchange rate regime matters. After controlling for these effects, an independent float adds at least 45% to the standard deviation of the real effective exchange rate, relative to a conventional peg, but most other regimes make little difference. The results are robust to alternative volatility measures and to sample selection bias.     

The effect of North Korean threats on financial markets in South Korea and Japan

This paper examines the effects of North Korean threats, as measured by the proprietary North Korean Threat Index (NKTI), on financial markets in South Korea and Japan. We examine the effects of the threats on stock markets, foreign exchange markets, and overnight interest rates. We consider causality in mean and variance tests to determine any link between the NKTI and financial variables. The causality-in-mean test results indicate the presence of a causal link running from North Korean threats to stock returns and exchange rate returns in both countries, but no significant link to the overnight interest rate in either country. The causality-in-variance test results indicate no significant impact emanating from North Korean threats. Integrating the North Korean economy into the global economy stands to eliminate these threats and thus to contribute to regional financial stability.