Short-Run and Long-Run Dynamics of Exchange Rates with Sticky Prices

This paper constructs microfoundations for the nexus between sticky goods prices and exchange rate overshooting. Based on an asset-pricing model, this paper describes how the exchange rate responds to a monetary shock in the short run and adjusts in later periods to a new long-run rate. In an environment where goods prices are sticky, the short-run response of the exchange rate to a monetary shock depends on the elasticity of consumption demand. The long-run exchange rate always shifts equiproportionately to a monetary shock regardless of the parameter values and is reached many periods after the shock.     

消费行为、产出变化与经常项目动态

国内吸收法认为,当国内需求没有完全吸收其产出时,就会通过净出口产生贸易顺差.中国持续的经常项目顺差似乎与消费需求不足有关.收入是决定居民消费需求的最基本因素之一.本文通过实证分析我国居民的消费与收入变化的关系来考察我国居民的消费需求,结合国内吸收法的思想来分析我国的经常项目动态.     

The Behavior of the Current Account in Response to Unobservable and Observable Shocks

The intertemporal approach to the balance of payments states that non-stationary flows in the current account will cointegrate or cotrend, unless there are permanent productivity shocks or long-run policy distortions. This paper examines the dynamics of the current account for a small open economy, using data from Sweden. The results show borderline cointegration for the current account. Recursive estimates disclose that there is no stable tendency towards finding cointegration. Cointegration is found for the first part of the sample, but from 1990 the cointegration test performs badly until speculative attacks force Sweden to give up the peg of the krona in 1992. In terms of the intertemporal approach, policy could be creating the imbalance, solved with the depreciation in 1992, after which the external accounts gradually move back to long-run equilibrium. [F31, F32, F41]     

Causal Relationship Between the Current Account and Financial Account

We demonstrate that a different causal relationship exists between the current and financial accounts in developed and developing countries. Using the Granger causality test, we clearly determine that the financial account is by and large responsible for the current account in developing countries; instead of financing the current account, the financial account thrusts the current account into an imbalance. In developed countries, however, the current account leads the way, and the financial account, as its name indicates, serves to finance a current account imbalance. This represents a forewarning that countries, which lack a sophisticated financial system to channel funds to proper locations, should not recklessly liberalize capital mobility.The author would like to thank an anonymous referee for valuable suggestions.     

Nontraded Goods and the Current Account

This paper investigates trade balance and current account behavior in response to various shocks when the economy produces and consumes both traded and nontraded goods. Previous analyses of these problems have interpreted current account behavior in terms of tension between parameters that measure intratemporal and intertemporal elasticity, respectively. This paper provides a simple general criterion for whether trade and current account behavior is "perverse" vis-à-vis the standard one-good model results: behavior is perverse if and only if traded and nontraded goods are Edgeworth complements; that is, if the cross-partial of the instantaneous utility function is positive.     

Sustainable and Excessive Current Account Deficits

Both the Mexican crisis of 1994–95 and the Asian financial crisis of 1997–98 have been preceded by large current account deficits run by the affected economies. External deficits are often assumed to play an important role in the propagation of financial crises in emerging markets. Policymakers are faced with a new challenge: that of resisting or accepting the large current account deficits that may result from heavy private capital inflows. This paper aims at providing some guidance:First, the Lawson Doctrine – according to which current account deficits that result from a shift in private-sector behaviour should not be a public policy concern – has been discredited by recent currency crises in Latin America and Asia. Second, define the size of current account deficits that should be sustainable in the long run. Third, the intertemporal approach to the current account does not provide a reliable benchmark to define when deficits become excessive. Fourth, large external deficits should be resisted if unsustainable currency appreciation, excessive risk-taking in the banking system and a sharp private spending boom are seen to coincide.     

收入不平等与中美经常项目失衡

本文建立一个开放经济环境的动态随机一般均衡模型,分析了收入不平等对经常项目的影响。数值模拟的结果表明:收入不平等可以通过国内消费需求、低收入阶层贷款和高收入阶层持有国外债券三个途径实现对经常项目的影响。长期内,收入不平等改善能够提高国内总需求,减少低收入阶层贷款和高收入阶层的国外债券持有量;短期内,收入不平等改善会降低中国低收入阶层消费,促进美国低收入阶层消费增加;收入不平等改善会减少中国经常项目顺差,而改善美国经常项目顺差,金融深化则会放大其作用幅度。本文结论显示,维持合理的收入分配以及适度的金融自由化水平有助于我国经常项目再平衡。     

Current Account and Exchange Rate Dynamics

The theoretical part of this paper analyses the positive and normative effects of a surprise monetary expansion in a small open economy characterized by imperfect competition and short-run price rigidity in the domestic sector. The temporary output boom fostered by the monetary expansion is shown to come at the cost of a permanent squeeze of the domestic sector. This affects welfare ambiguously, as the overall welfare consequences of the monetary expansion may eventually turn negative for a critical value of external assets. The empirical part of the paper provides evidence in favour of a key role of monetary shocks in driving current account fluctuations in seven major industrialized countries.
(J.E.L.: E61, F41).     

Productive Government Expenditures and the Current Account

This paper examines the effects of a change in government expenditure on the current account of the balance of payments using the optimizing approach. It is assumed that government expenditure is productive, and is regarded as an input in the aggregate production function. Based on the Blanchard–Fischer-type model, the paper demonstrates decisively that the current account deficit is due to a permanent increase in government expenditure.
JEL Classification Numbers: F41, H30.     

Meaningful Measures of the Current Account

Since the conventional current account uses cash-flow accounting, it is potentially devoid of economic meaning. Assessing foreign assets at market values and including expected transfers from abroad, this paper reports two measures of the external surplus that are grounded in economic theory. The first measure is the aggregate generational current account, annual differences in the sum of net foreign assets across all current and future generations. The second measure is the generational profile of net foreign assets in a benchmark year. These ideas are implemented with data from Korea.     

Current Account Adjustment and Capital Flows*

We examine episodes of current account adjustment in industrial countries over the past 30 years. We find that they were typically associated with a sizable growth slowdown and a large exchange rate depreciation. There was no discernible change in the nature of capital flows just prior to an adjustment. Hence, adjustments may be responding to the resolution of domestic imbalances rather than being an exogenous event. We show that global developments triggered the adjustment, possibly by triggering the unwinding of the domestic imbalances. Most of the ex post adjustment of the financial account was in private sector flows, primarily by foreign investors.     

Imperfect Asset Substitutability and Current Account Dynamics

In this paper, we present a model of the current account. The model has two variants, one in which assets are perfectly substitutable in investors' portfolios, and another in which they are not. We examine the responses of these two variants of the model to standard shocks, and show that under imperfect substitutability, a valuation effect comes into play. We focus on the external accounts, and examine the role and strength of these valuation effects. Additionally, the imperfect substitutability case allows us to examine the model's response to an exogenous change in investors's portfolio preferences. The model in this paper provides a framework for understanding the experience of the dollar's real value and of the US current account over the last decade.     

Discounting and Long-Run Behavior: Global Bifurcation Analysis of a Family of Dynamical Systems

This paper is concerned with the relationship between the discount rate and the nature of long-run behavior in dynamic optimization models. The theory is developed under two conditions. The first is history independence, which rules out multiple limit sets. The second is a condition that avoids the reversion to a stable steady state, as the discount factor is lowered, once cycles have emerged. These conditions appear to be the minimal restrictions that would allow analysis by a bifurcation diagram. The results are illustrated by two well-known examples in this literature, due to Sutherland and Weitzman–Samuelson. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: C61, D90, 041.     

Asset Price And Current Account Dynamics

We examine the interaction between asset market and current account in a small open economy. In an overlapping generations economy in which land and money are available assets, the interaction between the land price and current account dynamics is shown to generate a plausible (asset price) specie-flow mechanism. We apply them to a number of issues. Domestic credit policy is neutral in the long run: one unit of foreign reserve increase offsets one unit of credit reduction. Next, the association between the endowment of land and foreign asset accumulation depends on parameters of the model. Finally, we examine the dynamic adjustment s following a once-and-for-all capital inflow. When the adjustment involves running current account deficit, the recipient country's foreign reserve position is permanently lowered. Furthermore, the steady state level of national wealth is permanently reduced. [E4, F3]     

Fiscal Balance and Current Account in Professional Forecasts

This paper investigates the relationship between financial institutions' expectations of the current account and the fiscal balance. Using professional macroeconomic forecasts for the G‐7 countries, we find a positive relationship between forecasts of the cyclically adjusted fiscal balance deficit and forecasts of the current account deficit, indicating that professional forecasts embody links implied by the twin deficits hypothesis. In assessing the relationship between the forecasts of the fiscal deficit and the current account, we find that forecasters correctly make the distinction between the effect of fiscal policy and automatic stabilizers.     

Structural and Cyclical Factors behind Current Account Balances

Global external imbalances widened persistently over the last several years and have narrowed abruptly over the course of the financial crisis. Understanding the extent to which structural or cyclical factors may have driven these patterns is important to assess the likely evolution of global imbalances going forward, as well as the potential adjustment that can be achieved through changes in policy. This paper assesses the link between structural and cyclical factors and current account balances using a panel of 94 countries from 1973 to 2008. We find that the medium‐term evolution of global external imbalances can be related in large part to structural factors including cross‐country differences in demographics, fiscal deficits, oil dependency and intensity, stage of economic development, financial market development, and institutional quality. Part of the narrowing in current account balances since the financial crisis appears to be related to various cyclical factors including changes in output growth, oil prices, and exchange rates, and may be expected to reverse alongside the economic recovery.     

FDI与中国经常项目的实证分析

本文基于储蓄—投资的视角,采用时间序列计量技术,在5个变量系统内检验了外国直接投资对中国经常项目的影响。结果显示:经常项目、外国直接投资、名义汇率、名义利率以及GDP等5个变量之间存在长期的协整关系;利率、汇率不是经常项目的Granger原因,外国直接投资和GDP是经常项目的Granger原因,外国直接投资的增加导致经常项目顺差增加,GDP增加导致经常项目顺差减少。其政策含义在于,通过对包括外国直接投资和国内需求在内的有关宏观经济变量的调整可以有效调节中国的经常项目收支。     

Is Pricing to Market Behavior a Long-Run Phenomenon? A Non-Stationary Panel Analysis

This paper examines how the Swedish imports prices react to exchange ratechanges in the long run. It finds, through non-stationary panel analysis, thatthe Swedish import prices (for the majority of industries) change but not inproportion to exchange rate changes. The evidence from panel cointegrationalso shows that pricing behavior of the Swedish imports varies across industriesand such variations could be related to industry-specific characteristics.     

Are Australia's Current Account Deficits Excessive?

This paper compares the evolution of the Australian current account balance over the period 1954-94 against an optimal current account derived from a consumption-smoothing model. The findings indicate that the Australian current account was not used to smooth consumption optimally in the period prior to the relaxation of capital controls in the early 1980s. The results also suggest that in the period since the mid-1980s Australia's current account deficits have become excessive, and that the increase in net national saving required to satisfy its external borrowing constraint is about 2 to 4 per cent of GDP.