Flexible exchange rates,unemployment and stabilization policy effectiveness

The paper presents a general equilibrium model of a small flexible exchange rate economy comprising asset, goods, and labor markets. Viewing the exchange rate as determined proximately in asset markets, the study examines its influence on the excess demand for labor and for output and, correspondingly, its impact on the level of unemployment and external imbalance. The role of exchange rate expectations is central to the present analysis, which reconsiders, in that light, the conventional conclusions about monetary and fiscal policy effectiveness under flexible exchange rates.     

An empirical inquiry into the nature of the forward exchange rate bias

This paper tests whether anticipated real exchange rate movements fully account for the systematic, time-varying discrepancies between forward and future spot exchange rates. The data do not reject this hypothesis. The results demonstrate that (1) real exchange rate changes are predictable; (2) anticipated real exchange rate changes are reflected in the forward bias; and (3) information available at the signing of the forward contract is useless in forecasting differences between forward and future spot prices beyond the information's ability to predict real exchange rate changes. The results emphasize the importance of real exchange rates in international asset pricing.     

Foreign monetary shocks,differentiated products and international transmission: a two-country model with intra-industry trade

In this paper we study how the impact of a foreign monetary shock is transmitted between two monopolistically competitive economies engaging in intra-industry trade with differentiated products. Intra-industry trade is the only international link that works through the flexible exchange rate affecting national price levels and a product's internal and external relative prices. While national price levels are subject to purchasing power parity, the two relative prices are determined by the interaction between macro and micro variables. In this context, the exchange rate can insulate a national economy perfectly from a foreign monetary shock provided that monopolists adjust prices. Even if monopolists keep prices rigid, this shock only affects domestic real balances and aggregate demand, leaving domestic aggregate output unchanged because the real balances effect is just offset by the resulting unfavorable relative prices effects under the assumption of Spence-Dixit-Stiglitz preferences.     

China's exports,export tax rebates and exchange rate policy

This paper examines the relationship between China's exports, export tax rebates and exchange rate policy. It offers an explanation for why China's exports continued to rise under RMB real appreciations during the Asian financial crisis. Based on a traditional export demand model, we test our hypothesis that the counteracting effects of China's export tax rebate policy have diminished the effectiveness of real exchange rates in facilitating the resolution of trade imbalances under the current pegged exchange rate regime. We find evidence that RMB real appreciations during the crisis negatively affected China's exports, but the negative effects were mitigated by the positive effects of export tax rebates. We also find evidence of a long‐run relationship between China's exports and the other explanatory variables. The empirical evidence suggests that under the pegged exchange rate regime with limited adjustments, real exchange rate movements alone cannot resolve China's external imbalances. The policy implication of this study is that China needs to redirect its decades‐long export‐oriented development strategy to one that emphasises domestic demand‐oriented development and to replace the current pegged exchange rate regime with a market‐oriented more flexible exchange rate regime.     

Is there an optimal crawl?

This paper shows that optimal exchange rate policy can be defined in terms of either a long-run secular policy or a short-run stabilization policy. The rate of crawl which maximizes real per capita consumption is shown to often differ from the exchange rate movements produced under fixed or floating exchange rates. And the optimal program for dealing with short-run speculative capital flows will involve both discrete and gradual exchange rate changes. It is also argued that domestic monetary policy and exchange rate policy are not independent instruments.     

The resource reallocation costs of fixed and flexible exchange rates: A counterexample

This paper questions the view that resource reallocation costs are a disadvantage of a flexible exchange rate system relative to a fixed exchange rate. It is shown that reallocation costs of a flexible exchange rate are not necessarily greater than and indeed may be less than, those under a fixed exchange rate. A method is developed for testing this hypothesis. Applying the technique to Canadian exchange rate policy for 1953–1977 provides a counterexample to the view that reallocation costs are a disadvantage of flexible exchange rates.     

Consumption and real exchange rates in professional forecasts

Standard models of international risk sharing with complete asset markets predict a positive association between relative consumption growth and real exchange-rate depreciations across countries. The striking lack of evidence for this link — the consumption/real-exchange-rate anomaly or Backus–Smith puzzle — has prompted research on risk-sharing indicators with incomplete asset markets. That research generally implies that the association holds in forecasts, rather than realizations. Using professional forecasts for 28 countries for 1990–2010 we find no such association, whether for floating nominal exchange rate regimes, fixed exchange rates, or common currencies, thus deepening the puzzle.     

Real and Financial Sector Interaction Under Liberalization in an Open Developing Economy

A short‐run model incorporates instantaneous portfolio equilibrium with macroeconomic flows to clarify the structure of real–financial sector interactions. If equity and foreign exchange markets are introduced in structuralist theories of asset markets in developing countries, the key result that a fall in money supply raises the rate of inflation now holds only under special conditions on partial derivatives. But there is a tendency for interest rates to rise and for fluctuations in asset prices. Fuller integration of asset markets moderates these fluctuations. Outcomes are stable in spite of the generalized complementarity distinguishing equity markets from loan markets. Expectations play a major role. Implications for policy are to link domestic interest rates to foreign, remove artificial barriers to market integration, and stimulate demand as well as supply.     

Real effects of collapsing exchange rate regimes: an application to Mexico

This paper examines the impact of collapsing fixed, permanently fixed, and flexible exchange rate regimes on real output. Much of the recent discussion of the causes of exchange rate regime collapses has focused on capital flows and export demands. In an environment in which such external shocks predominate, a flexible exchange rate is shown theoretically to produce lower output variability for a range of parameter values. A counterfactual exercise is performed using Mexican data. We find that had Mexico been on a flexible rate for the past two decades, the variance of real output would have been reduced by half.     

浮动汇率制国家满足实际利率平价假说吗——区分贸易品和非贸易品的检验及对中国的启示

本文分别使用总产品价格、贸易品价格和非贸易品价格来构建实际利率,选取了实行浮动汇率制的八个工业化国家作为样本,通过检验两国间实际利率差序列是否平稳来验证实际利率平价(RIP)假说是否成立.实证结果显示,使用贸易品价格构建实际利率时,实际利率平价假说在大多数情况下能被证实,而使用其他两种价格构建实际利率时,该假说在多数情况下被证伪.这样.西方发达国家财政政策和货币政策失效的原因可在一定程度上得到解释,同时,我们的结论也可为中国未来金融改革提供有益的启示.     

Some doubts about the efficacy of monetary policy under flexible exchange rates

This paper raises doubts about the proposition that monetary policy is effective, under flexible exchange rates, in stabilizing domestic output. It is argued that if the price elasticities of the demands for exports and imports are affected by the transition to flexible rates, and capital flows are assumed to be dependent on the exchange rate, the efficacy of monetary policy under flexible rates will not necessarily follow.     

The resource reallocation costs of fixed and flexible exchange rates: A multi-country extension

For a sample of nineteen countries for 1972–79 we test the hypothesis that reallocation costs associated with temporary disturbances to the export sector of an economy are equal under fixed and flexible exchange rates. This test is an extension of earlier work indicating that in the special case of Canada, reallocation costs do not differ significantly under fixed and flexible rates. The degree of industrialization and openness of the countries included in the sample varies greatly; so it is interesting that the Canadian result generalizes to all but two cases. These results suggest that even during periods of considerable exchange rate variability, unnecessary resource reallocation costs may not be a significant disadvantage of a flexible exchange-rate system.     

Random disturbances and the choice of exchange regimes in an intergenerational model

An overlapping generational model is used to derive the consumption demand for individuals of each generation under expected utility-maximizing behavior: these demand functions are used to derive macroeconomic equilibrium under fixed and flexible exchange rates. The standard aggregate results concerning the insulating role of flexible rates for real external disturbances and fixed rates for internal disturbances are shown. However, the variability of an individual's utility need not be the same as the variability of aggregate variables. It is shown that the form of the utility function and the sources of disturbances are crucial in determining which exchange regime is preferable.     

A BEHAVIOURAL FINANCE MODEL OF EXCHANGE RATE EXPECTATIONS WITHIN A STOCK‐FLOW CONSISTENT FRAMEWORK

The paper combines behavioural finance to a stock‐flow consistent model of a two‐country economy in the portfolio tradition, with imperfect asset substitutability. ‘Conventionalists’ and ‘chartists’ set their expectations of changes in exchange rates based on some assessed fundamental value and past trends, respectively. We find that exchange rate expectations have a significant effect on exchange rate movements and trade account balances during the traverse and in steady states. A flexible exchange rate regime will continue to provide stabilizing properties, as long as the proportion of chartist actors relative to other agents is not overly large.     

Open Economy Dynamics in a Floating Exchange Rate Developing Country Context

ABSTRACT

This article develops a wavelet-based control model to simulate fiscal, monetary, and real exchange rate scenarios in an open economy developing country with an inflation-targeting regime. We use South African macro data to jointly simulate optimal fiscal and monetary policy under varying scenarios for real exchange rate stability with interest rate parity. As real exchange rate stability increases, the model simulates the effects on the trade balance under both a constant and depreciating real exchange rate. We find that short-term cycle stability problems are somewhat mitigated by allowing the real exchange rate to depreciate.     

Price mechanism and endogenous productivity in an open economy stock‐flow consistent model

This paper combines a Stock‐Flow Consistent open economy two‐country model with the Verdoorn‐Kaldor law, which posits a positive relationship between the rate of growth of output and productivity growth. The model shows the role of endogenous productivity as a shock magnifier and underlines the limits of the mechanisms of adjustment that rely exclusively on the “buffer” provided by flexible exchange rates. It also provides arguments in support of fiscal policy both in the context of flexible exchange rates and fixed exchange rates. Finally, it challenges the sustainability of austerity measures aimed to achieve external balance.     

Persistent real exchange rates

Three well known facts that characterize exchange rate data are: (a) the high correlation between bilateral nominal and real exchange rates; (b) the high degree of persistence in real exchange rate movements; and (c) the high volatility of real exchange rates. This paper attempts a joint, albeit partial, rationalization of these facts in an environment with no staggered contracts and where prices are preset for only one quarter. There are two key innovations in the paper. First, we augment a standard two-country open economy model with learning-by-doing in production at the firm level. This induces monopolistically competitive firms to endogeneize the productivity effect of their price setting behavior. Specifically, firms endogenously choose not to adjust prices by the full proportion of a positive monetary shock in order to take advantage of the productivity benefits of higher production. Second, we introduce habits in leisure. This makes the labor supply decision dynamic and adds an additional source of propagation. We show that the calibrated model can quantitatively reproduce significant fractions of the aforementioned facts. Moreover, as in the data, the model also produces a positive correlation between the terms of trade and the nominal exchange rate.     

The out-of-sample success of term structure models as exchange rate predictors: a step beyond

A large literature suggests that standard exchange rate models cannot outperform a random walk forecast and that the forward rate is not an optimal predictor of the spot rate. However, there is evidence that the term structure of forward premia contains valuable information for forecasting future spot exchange rates and that exchange rate dynamics display nonlinearities. This paper proposes a term-structure forecasting model of exchange rates based on a regime-switching vector equilibrium correction model which is novel in this context. Our model significantly outperforms both a random walk and, to a lesser extent, a linear term-structure vector equilibrium correction model for four major dollar rates across a range of horizons.     

Terms of trade and exchange rate regimes in developing countries

Since Friedman [Essays in Positive Economics, University of Chicago Press, Chicago (1953) 157-203] an advantage often attributed to flexible exchange rate regimes over fixed regimes is their ability to insulate more effectively the economy against real shocks. I use a post-Bretton Woods sample (1973-96) of 75 developing countries to assess whether the responses of real GDP, real exchange rates, and prices to terms-of-trade shocks differ systematically across exchange rate regimes. I find that responses are significantly different across regimes in a way that supports Friedman’s hypothesis. The paper also examines the importance of terms-of-trade shocks in explaining the overall variance of output and prices in developing countries.     

Exchange rate expectations and monetary policy

The adjustment process to a monetary disturbance is studied in a model of perfect capital mobility and flexible exchange rates. Exchange rate expectations are emphasized and used to establish an adjustment process. In the short run, a monetary expansion gives rise to a depreciation in the exchange rate and a reduction in saving due to the terms of trade deterioration. The exchange rate depreciation, in the short run, may be in excess of the long-run depreciation. The trade balance in the short run may worsen. The long-run equilibrium of the analysis conforms to the Mundell-Fleming results that establish the force of monetary policy under flexible rates.