Institutional Investors,Trade Linkage,Macroeconomic Similarities,and Contagion of the Thai Crisis

This paper empirically investigates the presence of contagion effects and their causes in the 1997 Southeast Asian crisis. Our empirical results indicate that the Thai crisis was transmitted to neighboring Southeast Asian countries through contagion. They also suggest that the international investors' institutional practice of securing sufficient liquidity and trade linkage were important in spreading the contagion, but the financial integration channel was not important. In addition, the similar macroeconomic conditions of the Southeast Asian countries, such as large capital inflows, large accumulation of current account deficit, and high level of external debt prior to the onset of the Thai crisis, were also responsible for the contagion. J. Japan. Int. Econ., June 2001, 15(2), pp. 199–224. Department of Ecnomics, Korea University, 5-1 Anam-dong, Songbuk-ku, Seoul 136-701, Republic of Korea; and School of Economics, Kookmin University, 861-1 Chongnung-dong, Songbuk-ku, Seoul 136-702, Republic of Korea. Copyright 2001 Academic Press.Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: F30, F31.     

Exchange-Rate Strategies in the Competition for Attracting Foreign Direct Investment

Building on the needs for long-term capital inflows in developing countries, this paper reconsiders the choice of an exchange-rate regime by integrating the determinants of multinational firms' locations. The trade-off between price competitiveness and a stable nominal exchange rate is modeled. Empirical results show that exchange-rate volatility is detrimental to foreign direct investment (FDI) and that its impact compares with that of misalignments. One policy implication is that the building of currency blocks could be a way of increasing FDI to emerging countries as a whole. The frontiers of monetary areas would then be strongly influenced by geography, as FDI is. J. Japan. Int. Econ., June 2001, 15(2), pp. 178–198. University of Paris X-Nanterre (THEMA) and CEPII, 200 avenue de la République F-92000 Nanterre, France, CEPII and TEAM, 9 rue Georges Pitard F-75015 Paris, France, (University of Amiens (CRIISEA), CEPII and TEAM, 9 rue Georges Pitard F-75015 Paris, France). Copyright 2001 Academic Press.Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: F21, F23, F31, F33.     

International monetary arrangements in the Asia-Pacific before and after

This paper assesses the characteristics and policy implications of the international monetary arrangements in the Asia-Pacific pre- and post-July 1997. It first examines the literature on speculative attacks on fixed and managed exchange rate regimes. Since these speculative attacks are more likely to be successful when financial markets are well integrated, it then assesses the degree of financial market integration in the region. Furthermore, as the empirical evidence also suggests a possible role for real exchange rate overvaluation, we examine the evidence regarding misalignment. Using a purchasing power parity (PPP) criterion and a criterion based on a Balassa-Samuelson model, we find mixed evidence of exchange rate overvaluation. Given that our ability to determine the equilibrium real exchange rate is so limited, we caution against a return to a fixed or highly managed exchange rate regime. Finally, we assess how monetary policy and exchange rate policy have interacted over the pre- and post-crisis periods, using a monetary model of exchange rates. JEL classification: F31; F33; F34     

Exchange Rate Regimes of Developing Countries: Global Context and Individual Choices

This paper argues that, in analyzing the choice of exchange rate regimes in developing and transition countries in the present global economic context, it is essential to distinguish between those countries with substantial involvement in international financial markets and those where involvement is limited. For developing countries with important linkages to modern global capital markets, an important lesson of the recent crises in emerging market countries is that the requirements for sustaining pegged exchange rate regimes have become significantly more demanding. For many emerging market countries, therefore, regimes that allow substantial actual exchange rate flexibility are probably desirable. If supported by the requisite policy discipline and institutional structures, however, hard currency pegs may also be appropriate for some of these countries. Beyond the emerging markets countries, for many developing countries with less linkage to global capital markets, traditionalexchange rate pegs and intermediate regimes are more viable and retain important advantages. J. Japan. Int. Econ., March 2001, 15(1), pp. 68–101. Research Department, International Monetary Fund, Washington, DC, 20431. Copyright 2001 Academic Press.Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: F31, F33, F41.     

Determinants of Trade Credit in the Japanese Manufacturing Sector

This paper examines the determinants of trade credit in Japanese manufacturing companies. The empirical analysis presents evidence that the volume of trade credit is influenced not only by transactional factors but also by financial positions. The empirical test reveals that firms' future business prospects affect the volume of trade credit. Notably, for small firms whose liquidity is constrained, nontransactional factors such as an increase in cash flow reduce the need for trade credit. This paper also finds that trade payables act as a complement to bank loans. The quantitative relationship between trade payables and bank loans suggests that when monetary policy works in the financial markets, it also influences the trade-related credit markets. J. Japan. Int. Econ., June 2001, 15(2), pp. 160–177. Department of Economics, Fukushima University, 1 Kanayagawa, Fukushima-shi, Fukushima 960-1296, Japan. Copyright 2001 Academic Press.Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: E52, G32.     

The Exchange Rate Policy of the Euro: A Matter of Size?

This paper analyzes how country size affects exchange rate policy and volatility. A hump shaped relation between exchange rate variability and the size of countries is generated in the theoretical model: exchange rate variability increases with country size for small countries but then decreases for large countries. The paper finds that this theoretical prediction holds well for bilateral exchange rates of the OECD countries in the period between 1980 and 1995 as well as for a subsample of European exchange rates with respect to the dollar. The results suggest that the dollar/euro volability may be lower than the present dollar/DM volatility.J. Japan. Int. Econ., Dec. 1998,12(4), pp. 455–482. CERAS-ENPC, Graduate Institute of International Studies, and CEPR, 28 rue des Saints Pères, Paris 75007, France.Copyright 1998 Academic Press.Journal of Economic LiteratureClassification Numbers F33, F41, F42.     

Monetary autonomy in selected Asian economies: The role of international reserves

With the increased financial integration of Asian countries, monetary policy takes on the additional role of maintaining the stability of the financial system along with the traditional objectives of promoting growth and employment with price stability. Given the importance and relevance of monetary policy in Asian countries, we examine monetary autonomy and its interaction with financial integration, currency regimes and international reserves for the past two decades in the following Asian countries: Thailand, Korea, Indonesia, the Philippines, and India. The empirical analysis reveals two significant and interesting findings that have policy implications. First, Thailand, Korea and Indonesia, countries that have moved towards a floating currency regime, experienced simultaneous declines in the sensitivity of their interest rates (thereby increasing monetary autonomy), while India continues to increase the sensitivity of its interest rates with a pegged exchange rate and increased financial integration. Second, in all of the studied economies, the accumulation of international reserves has contributed, to some extent, to the retention of monetary autonomy in terms of preventing the sensitivity of the interest rates from rising. We speculate that the accumulation of reserves plays the role of an anchor for monetary autonomy in emerging market economies facing a “fear of floating”.     

Central bank intervention and exchange rate dynamics: A rationale for the regime-switching process of exchange rates

By proposing a stochastic intervention model of exchange rate determination, this paper provides an alternative rationale for the success of the Markov-switching model in explaining exchange rate dynamics. One extreme case is a pure floating rate model while the other extreme one is a driftless random walk model. The relation between the exchange rate and the future fundamentals under a non-intervention state is looser than the one under a pure floating exchange regime. This article also provides a method for detecting a central bank's interventions when intervention data are not available. Applying the stochastic intervention model to the monthly NT$/US$ exchange rates in 1989M1–2004M6, we find that it outperforms both the pure floating rate model and the random walk model in terms of the likelihood value and the diagnostic test of heteroscedasticity. In addition, with the constructed intervention state index in this article, the estimation of the stochastic intervention model is found to be consistent with the hypothesis that the regime switches of exchange rates are due to a central bank's (non-)interventions. J. Japanese Int. Economies 21 (1) (2007) 64–77.     

人民币汇率制度改革以及汇率波动性研究

自我国1978年改革开放以来,我国汇率制度的改革大体上经过了3个阶段:复汇率制度、单一有管理浮动汇率制度、参考"一篮子货币"有管理浮动汇率制度。本文着重讲述了这三个阶段汇率制度的改革情况,分析了人民币兑美元的汇率走势,并对汇率波动性进行实证研究,然后指出我国汇率制度当前存在的问题,以及针对这些问题提出改革的下一步路径。     

Optimal Pegs for East Asian Currencies

It has been evidenced that the U.S. dollar is prominent in the exchange rate regimes of Asian countries. This paper shows that the relative stability of Asian exchange rates against the U.S. dollar until the 1997 crisis is not accounted for by the theory of optimum currency areas, in contradiction to the situation in Europe vis-à-vis the deutsche mark. An alternative framework is proposed where the absence of a yen bloc is explained by the mismatch between the country distribution of trade and the currency distribution of the debt. It is shown that the lack of cooperation makes Asian countries underweight the yen in their implicit basket pegs.J. Japan. Int. Econ., March 1999,13(1), pp. 44–60. University of Lille 2 (CADRE) and CEPII, 9 rue G. Pitard, 75015 Paris, France.Copyright 1999 Academic Press.Journal of Economic LiteratureClassification Numbers: F31, F33, F36.     

East Asian equity markets,financial crises,and the Japanese currency

The paper studies the interactions between the US and four East Asian equity markets. The focus is on the change in the information structure/flow between these markets triggered by the 1997 Asian financial crisis. It is shown that the information structure during the crisis period is different from that in the non-crisis periods. While the US market leads the four East Asian markets before, during, and after the crisis, it is Granger-caused by these markets during the financial crisis period but not in the post-crisis sample. Further, in accordance with concerns reported in the market, the Japanese currency is found to affect these equity markets during the crisis period. The Japanese yen effect, however, disappears in the post-crisis sample. The Japanese currency effect is quite robust as it is found from both local currency and US dollar return data and in the presence of Japanese stock returns. J. Japanese Int. Economies 21 (1) (2007) 138–152.     

Exchange rates in the modern floating era: what do we really know?

Forecasting nominal exchange rates remains a remarkably difficult task, despite the proliferation of new floating currencies, the maturation of the floating rate period, the deepening of financial markets, and the development of more sophisticated econometric tests that make use of today’s more powerful computing possibilities. Despite these advances, the basic results of Meese and Rogoff in the 1980s stand up remarkably well—it is still extremely difficult to forecast exchange rates. To the extent that there is any forecasting power, the most promising models are those based on purchasing power parity or the current account, although it must be noted that these mainly predict the real exchange rate, rather than the nominal exchange rate. Thus, some of the adjustment takes place in prices. Finally, it should be noted that panel methods help in exchange rate forecasting, albeit mainly by allowing better estimation of nonstructural factors such as shift parameters.

Testing the Unstable Middle and Two Corners Hypotheses About Exchange Rate Regimes

The recent rash of international currency crises has generated considerable interest in the role that exchange rate regimes have played in contributing to these crises. Many economists have argued that efforts to operate adjustably pegged exchange rate regimes have been a major contributor to “the unstable middle” hypothesis and some have argued that this unstable middle is so broad that only the two corners of hard fixes or floating rates will be stable in a world of high capital mobility—the two corners or bipolar hypothesis. Two recent empirical studies by researchers at the International Monetary Fund reach opposing conclusions on these issues. We examine the issue further and show that conclusions can be quite sensitive to how exchange rate regimes are grouped into categories and the measures of currency crises that are used. In general we find that the dead center of the adjustable peg is by far the most crisis prone broad type of exchange rate regimes, but that countries need not go all the way to freely floating rates or hard fixes to substantially reduce the risks of currency crises.

Exchange Rate Regime and Demand for Reserves: Evidence from Kenya,Mexico and Philippines

This paper empirically investigates the demand for international reserves (and foreign exchange reserves) during fixed and floating exchange rates periods in three developing countries: Kenya, Mexico and Philippines. Based on theoretical models, three factors are identified as important for the demand of international reserves and foreign reserves: average propensity to import, volume of imports and variability of reserves. The paper employs the cointegration methodology and error correction method to investigate the relationships. Cointegration tests results indicate a reliable long-run stationary relationship between the international reserves (and foreign exchange reserves) and the stated explanatory variables across countries and sub-periods of fixed and clean float. The error correction results indicate causality from the explanatory variables to the reserves during both the short and long run. This is true during both the fixed and the floating periods.

Current account: mean-reverting or random walk behavior?

This paper sets out to investigate the statistical properties of current account in the crisis-affected countries of East Asian (Asian-5: Indonesia, Korea, Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand) utilizing data from 1976Q1 to 2001Q4. We split the full sample period into two sub-periods of the pre-crisis (1976Q1–1996Q4) and post-crisis (1997Q1–2001Q4) eras. Univariate unit root tests indicate that current account follows a non-stationary process under both eras. However, using more sophisticated panel techniques revealed that the current account displays mean-reverting property in all three sampling periods. Meanwhile, deviations of half-life estimates in the full sample period (post-crisis) were found to be much more rapid compared to the pre-crisis period. Our major conclusions are first, the empirical evidence supports the modern intertemporal approach to current account. Second, the results reveal that the Asian-5 current accounts were on a sustainable path, even during the pre-crisis period, hence, questioning the notion that the East Asian financial crisis was due to the mismanagement of external imbalances.     

Promoting Imports to Appease Trade Partners: Japan's New Trade Policies

This paper documents and analyzes Japan's various import promotion policies. Appeasing Japan's trade partners, particularly the United States, seems to be a major goal of these policies. The import promotion efforts are best described as lowering the fixed costs of entry into the Japanese market or lowering the switching costs involved in switching from a domestic supplier to a foreign one. Various models of the policies are discussed along with their different predictions as to the effects of the policies. J. Japan. Int. Econ., September 2001, 15(3), pp. 253–270. Department of Economics, University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2424 Maile Way, SSB 542, Honolulu, Hawaii 96822. Copyright 2001 Academic Press.Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: F13, F14.     

Financial market integration,exchange rate policy,and the dynamics of business and employment in Korea

We study the consequences of different degrees of international financial market integration and exchange rate policies in a calibrated, medium-scale model of the Korean economy. The model features endogenous producer entry into domestic and export markets and search-and-matching frictions in labor markets. This allows us to highlight the consequences of financial integration and the exchange rate regime for the dynamics of business creation and unemployment. We show that, under flexible exchange rates, access to international financial markets increases the volatility of both business creation and the number of exporting plants, but the effects on employment volatility are more modest. Pegging the exchange rate can have unfavorable consequences for the effects of terms of trade appreciation, but more financial integration is beneficial under a peg if the economy is subject to both productivity and terms of trade shocks. The combination of a floating exchange rate and internationally complete markets would be the best scenario for Korea among those we focus on.     

Measuring the Liquidity Effect: The Case of Japan

In this paper, we measure the liquidity effect in Japan, complementing the work done by F. Hayashi (2001, Int. Econ. Rev.42, 287–316) and compare it to the liquidity effect in the United States. Since institutional features are similar across these two countries, we apply J. Hamilton's (1997, Amer. Econ. Rev.87, 80–97; 1998, Carnegie-Rochester Conf. Ser. Public Pol. 49, 1–44) methodology to estimate the liquidity effect for each day of the maintenance period. Detailed daily data supplied by the Bank of Japan enable us to obtain more accurate estimates for Japan. Our key findings, which are not found in F. Hayashi (2001, Int. Econ. Rev.42, 287–316) are as follows: (1) On the final day of a reserve maintenance period, both countries show the strongest evidence of the liquidity effect, and (2) in both countries the liquidity effect tends to be larger and more statistically significant toward the end of the period. J. Japan. Int. Econ., September 2002, 16(3), pp. 289–316. Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, 1-3-1 Kasumigaseki, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo 100-8901, Japan. © 2002 Elsevier Science (USA).Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: E43, E44, E52.     

A Comparative Analysis of Export Price Pass-through in Three Open Asian Economies: Korea,Singapore and Thailand

Abstract

The degree of exchange rate pass-through is of paramount importance to small and open economies as it has a direct impact on domestic inflation as well as the effectiveness of exchange rate as an adjustment tool. High exchange rate pass-through (ERPT) is often cited as a reason for a “fear of floating”. This article analyzes the degree of ERPT into the export prices of three Asian economies—Korea, Thailand and Singapore for the period 1980: Q1–2006: Q4 using both US dollar bilateral rates as well as nominal effective exchange rates. The study also examines whether there are asymmetries in ERPT between exchange rate appreciation and depreciation.     

International co-movements and business cycle transmission between Korea and Japan

This study examines the economic relationship and interdependence between Korea and Japan. Using macroeconomic data, an event chronology, and trade flows, I examine the question, are business cycles transmitted from Japan to Korea, and/or from Korea to Japan? And, how has that transmission changed over time? The study uses structured vector autoregressions (SVARs) to analyze monthly data 1960.01–2002.01 on industrial production, prices, interest rates, money supplies, and exchange rates. Japanese business cycles are found to have a moderate effect upon business cycle fluctuations in Korea, and that influence seems to be increasing over time. J. Japanese Int. Economies 18 (1) (2004) 57–83.