The Impact of Korea's Exchange Rate Volatility on Korean Trade

This study uses a GARCH-in-mean model to analyse the impact of Korea's nominal exchange rate volatility on exports and export prices over the current flexible-rate period. The volatility of Korea's won increases the exchange risk of exporters and leads to changes in export volume and price. This paper provides some evidence that nominal exchange rate volatility has had a statistically significant impact on real exports over the current floating-rate period. We show that persistence-in-variance of exchange rates affects the market for exports in Korea. An important result is that the effect of exchange rate volatility on trade variables is shown to be significant. We find that the GARCH conditional variance has a statistically significant impact on the reduced form equations. The magnitude of the effect is generally stronger for export quantities than prices. This result is contradicts that of Kroner and Lastrapes's analysis. This is explained by the fact that Korean exporters choose the strategy of pricing to maintain market share instead of adjusting export prices to reflect exchange rate changes, even when this cuts profit margins.     

Pricing to Market： Chinese Export Pricing to the USA after the Peg

In July 2005, the Chinese Government unpegged the RMB from the US dollar. As the RMB has followed a remarkably predictable appreciation over time, I examine the price of Chinese exports to the USA after unpegging the exchange rate. Results suggest that the Chinese industries with greater import market share were able to raise their prices after the removal of the pegged exchange rate regime; however, over time there is a significant deflationary trend. Chinese export prices tended to decrease under an unanticipated RMB appreciation; this effect was more pronounced for industries with more pricing flexibility. This suggests that Chinese exporters are consistently ＂pricing to market＂ and thus creating a significant foreign exchange policy implication. Specifically, a more flexible exchange rate regime will likely have little impact on the prices of Chinese exports to the USA but might increase the profit volatility of Chinese firms.     

Exchange Rate Volatility,Heterogeneous Firms and Market Concentration

With the gradual promotion of market‐oriented reform of the RMB exchange rate, the fluctuation range of the RMB exchange rate is increasing. How to deal with the impact of exchange rate volatility on Chinese exports is an important challenge faced by China. This paper finds that although exchange rate volatility, as a whole, has a negative impact on exports, high‐productivity exporters are less prone to exchange rate volatility shock in both intensive and extensive margins. As high‐productivity firms are less affected by exchange rate risk, they account for larger market shares. This paper, from a new perspective, provides evidence that increasing productivity helps mitigate the negative impact of exchange volatility on exports.     

Exchange rates and the trade balance: the case of Singapore 1970 to 1996

The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between the real trade balance and the real exchange rate for bilateral trade in merchandise goods between Singapore and the USA on a quarterly basis over the period 1970 to 1996 using the partial reduced form model of Rose and Yellen (1989). We also hope to shed further light on what has become known as the ‘Singapore export puzzle’: the observation that, despite periods of rapid nominal and real appreciation of the Singapore dollar, export growth in aggregate has remained buoyant.Our findings suggest that the real exchange rate does not have a significant impact on the real bilateral trade balance for Singapore and the USA, thus confirming previous work which finds a weak relationship between changes in the exchange rate and changes in export and import prices and volumes for Singapore. We also found little evidence of a J-curve effect. Although positive coefficients linking real exports with lagged values of the real exchange rate might be indicative of ‘small country’ pricing by exporters in U.S. dollars, it is not clear that this is masking J-curve effects from an initial rise in import values as the home currency depreciates.     

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.     

进口国汇率及其波动对福建省出口贸易的影响

本文利用月度数据,研究进口国名义汇率、名义汇率波动率、实际汇率、实际汇率波动率对福建省出口贸易的影响,通过协整检验来估计各变量间长期均衡关系。研究表明,福建省向美日韩、欧盟等国的出口与该国汇率及其波动无关,而福建省向香港、台湾、新加坡等地的出口则很大程度上受到其汇率水平变化的影响,但汇率波动率的影响却较小。同时,实证检验还发现,对于关注汇率变化的进口国而言,名义汇率和实际汇率水平的变化,对贸易的影响程度基本相同。     

Exchange Rate Changes and Export Prices in a Small Semi-Open Economy

This paper analyses the reaction of export prices to exchange rate changes in Nigeria. The major proposition examined in the study is that, exchange rate changes are not reflected fully in the prices of the country's exports. The analysis suggests that manufactured export firms in the country may have been price discriminating between domestic and export markets; only about 93% of exchange rate changes occurring in the period 1986 to 1995 is shown as reflected in the domestic price of manufactured export. However, this result is qualified by the fact that, over 75% of the data analysed were generated.     

Exchange rate regimes and real exchange rate volatility: Does inflation targeting help or hurt?

This paper revisits the comparison of the effects of inflation targeters versus hard fixers and intermediate exchange rate regimes. In particular, we are interested in exploring the impact of inflation targeting (IT) on real effective exchange rate (REER) volatility for a panel of 62 developing countries over the period 2006–2012. We also analyze the impact of IT regimes on REER in terms of its two component parts, i.e. relative tradable prices across countries as well as sectoral prices of tradables and nontradables within countries. The paper accounts for self-selection concerns regarding policy adoption and examines the effects of commodity exports and foreign exchange intervention. Notably, IT regimes seem to have experienced greater REER volatility, largely driven by external prices in developed countries. For developing countries, IT regimes show no difference in REER volatility, though there is some evidence that they have lower volatility in internal prices.     

我国出口汇率传递的非对称性:来自中日贸易的证据

文章扩展了Yang（2007）的厂商定价模型，对汇率传递非对称性、特点和成立条件进行理论分析，发现对称传递需要满足严格的条件，而现实中更常见的是非对称汇率传递。在一定条件下，商品需求弹性越大，越可能呈现出口国货币贬值传递率高而升值传递率低的特点。利用2000年1月至2011年12月我国出口日本的966种商品价格数据，发现汇率波动向价格传递具有非对称性：（1）人民币升值时，日元价格上涨较少；而贬值时，价格下降较多。我国出口商品的需求弹性较大，在日本市场上面对的是一个强竞争结构。（2）若月度升值超过一定幅度（测算约为2.43%），传递率又会有所上升，说明尽管日元价格易跌难涨，但在升值导致成本上涨较多、明显挤压利润时，厂商不得不适当提高日元售价。采用2000年至2018年9月日本从中国进口单位价值指数进行稳健性检验，得出类似结论。现阶段稳定的人民币名义汇率对我国出口企业是更为有利的。     

Firms’ heterogeneity,demand accumulating,and exchange rate pass-through

In this article, we study how the export behaviors of new and incumbent exporters differentially respond to exchange rate shocks. We establish a dynamic model, in which new exporters strategically charge a lower price than incumbent exporters to grow their customer base and increase future sales. The model predicts that new exporters adjust their prices more aggressively relative to their incumbent counterparts in response to exchange rate fluctuations. Using a transaction-level data set containing all Chinese exporters during the 2000–2009 period, we find supporting evidence for the model's predictions: new exporters adjust their price 1.5 times more than incumbent exporters. This, in turn, results in export quantities being less responsive to exchange rate shocks among new exporters. The result holds for a series of robustness checks. The findings imply that there are different degrees of exchange rate pass-through among new and incumbent exporters.     

COMMODITY PRICE SHOCKS AND THE AUSTRALIAN ECONOMY SINCE FEDERATION*

Australia has experienced frequent and large commodity export price shocks similar to commodity exporters in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, but this price volatility has had much more modest impact on economic performance. Why? This paper explores Australian terms of trade volatility since 1901. It identifies two major price shock episodes before the recent mining‐led boom and bust. It assesses their relative magnitude, their impact on de‐industrialisation and distribution during the booms, and the labour market and policy responses to the shocks. Australia has indeed responded differently to volatile commodity prices than have other commodity exporters.     

Has pass-through to export prices risen? Evidence for Japan

This paper investigates the exchange rate response of Japanese export prices over the period 1980 through 2007 using sector-specific measures of the yen’s value relative to invoicing currencies. It finds a significant increase in the response of total export prices to the yen in the late 1990s. The rise in the total export price response is traced to increases in the exchange rate response of two key export sectors. These findings for Japanese exports are consistent with the documented decline in pass-through to OECD import prices and suggest the latter could originate with changes in export pricing behavior.     

The effect of oil price on China's exports

The increase in oil prices in recent years has occurred concurrently with a rapid expansion of Chinese exports in the world markets, despite China being an oil importing country. In this paper we develop a theoretical model that explains the positive correlation between Chinese exports and the oil price. The model shows that Chinese growth can lead to an increase in oil prices that has a stronger impact on its export competitors. This is due to the large labor force surplus of China. We then examine this hypothesis by estimating a reduced form equation for Chinese exports using Rodrik [Rodrik, Dani, 2006. What's so special about China's exports? China and World Economy 14, 1–19.]'s measure of export competitiveness, together with the oil price, productivity, real exchange rate, and foreign industrial production over the monthly 1992–2005 period. The results suggest a stable relationship and yields slightly positive values for the price of oil and elastic coefficients for export competitiveness, along with the expected negative elasticity for the real exchange rate.     

Does quality differentiation matter in exporters' pricing behaviour? Comparing China and India

The product quality dimension has been rarely mentioned as a factor explaining the heterogeneous pricing strategies of exporters. This could underestimate the degree of mark-up adjustment and the extent of incomplete exchange rate pass-through (ERPT) at a disaggregated level across products and destination markets. This paper investigates the role of quality differentiation in price discrimination using data for China and India's exports disaggregated at the 6-digit product level across destination markets. The paper adopts an empirical approach that incorporates gravity model explanatory factors and allows disentangling the effect of quality on trade prices and volumes from that of other sources of price variation. After excluding short duration export spells, China's export prices denominated in foreign currency terms increase with the yuan's depreciation, implying an increase in exporters' mark-ups, but they decrease as expected in the case of India. However, mark-up increases decline with product quality and destination market income, as the elasticity of demand perceived by exporters increases. These findings remain robust to different measures of quality, samples, specifications, and to the potential endogeneity of quality.     

Do Chinese and Korean products compete in the Japanese market? An investigation of machinery exports

The purpose of this paper is to examine whether and to what extent Chinese and Korean products in the machinery industry compete with each other in the Japanese market. Empirical tests of panel data of 16 machinery products from 2000Q1 to 2012Q2 show that a decrease in the unit prices of Chinese exports leads to a decrease in the demand for Korean exports. In contrast, a decrease in the unit prices of Korean exports does not lead to a decrease in the demand for Chinese exports. In addition, lagged Chinese prices have bigger impacts on current Korean prices than lagged Korean prices on current Chinese prices. Simulation experiments investigating the impacts of a change in exchange rates on the Chinese and Korean export volumes also confirm that the Korean variables do not affect the Chinese export volume as much as the Chinese variables affect the Korean export volume. Overall, the findings in the present paper indicate that China has already emerged as a formidable competitor to Korea in the Japanese machinery market.     

Exchange rate volatility and ASEAN-4’s trade flows: is there a third country effect?

This paper investigates the impact of exchange rate volatility on the trade flows among ASEAN-4 countries (Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand) as well as to their five main trading partners. External volatility is included in the models to study the ‘third country’ effect on the trade flows. We employ annual import and export data over the period of 1980–2012. The results from the bounds testing approach to cointegration and error-correction model reveal that the real exchange rate volatility does play a significant role in 15 export and four import models in short-run and long-run. Moreover, in both import and export models, the effects of exchange rate volatility on trade flows are negative rather than positive. Finally, the effects of volatility from the ASEAN-4’s currency/yuan rate dominate the third country effect on the ASEAN-4’s trade.     

Exchange rate volatility,sectoral trade,and the aggregation bias

This paper proposes a sectoral theoretical model in an imperfect competition framework, with country-specific and industry-specific original variables, notably factor productivity, scale economies, or product differentiation. It is then empirically estimated in a panel data model, at a sectoral and geographical disaggregation level, to test the impact of exchange rate volatility on G-7 countries' exports. Economies of scale are estimated from a non-linear translog production system. Two exchange rate volatility measurements have been used: the moving sample standard deviation and the GARCH approach. The main finding shows that the impact of exchange rate volatility on exports varies considerably, depending on the industry covered and the export destination markets. As a consequence, there is both a sectoral and geographical aggregation bias when estimating the effects of exchange rate variations. JEL no. F1, F12, F14     

Exchange Rate Pass‐through to China's Export Price: A Product‐level Investigation

Exchange rate movement usually results in changes in the production costs of exporting firms, and, therefore, the prices and the quantity of traded products. The present paper constructs a theoretical model to demonstrate that export products with higher productivity, or with larger market share, or of higher quality will experience a less complete pass‐through. Using the six‐digit harmonized system export data from the CEPII database over the period of 2000 to 2013, the present paper examines how product heterogeneity affects the exchange rate pass‐through of Chinese exports. The empirical results show that the most competitive Chinese export products, or those least affected by exchange rate risks, are those of higher quality, with higher technological complexity and at the high end of the international value chain. Therefore, Chinese exporting firms should pay more attention to improving export quality and upgrading technology to better cope with exchange rate risks and to enjoy more bargaining power in the international market.     

Indonesia's Non-Oil Export Performance During the Economic Crisis: Distinguishing Price Trends from Quantity Trends

Despite an enormous currency depreciation, the growth rate of Indonesia's non-oil exports, measured in dollars, did not accelerate during the first two years of the Asian crisis. In fact, during the second year of the crisis non-oil export value dropped sharply. This paper demonstrates that the main reason for the decline in the dollar value of non-oil exports was a collapse of export prices. Non-oil export dollar prices fell 26% between the second quarter of 1997 and the second quarter of 1999. Measured at constant prices, non-oil exports grew 24% and manufactured exports 31% during this period. Non-oil import prices fell by roughly the same amount as non-oil export prices during the crisis, with little change in the non-oil terms of trade. The decline in the price of traded goods significantly reduced the magnitude of the real exchange rate depreciation experienced by Indonesia.     

Chinese exchange rate and price effects on G3 import prices

This paper explores the degree of price and exchange rate interdependence between China and the G3 (US, Japan and the Euro-zone) by undertaking a VAR based shock analysis. A GARCH framework is also employed to derive the conditional variances to uncover the extent of volatility transmission. We address two key issues. First as there have been concerns about low value-added cheap Chinese goods flooding G3 markets, we attempt to measure the impact of Chinese prices on G3 import prices. Second, we focus on the transmission of exchange rate shocks – a subject which we approach by examining shocks in China's bilateral exchange rate with each of these major trading partners (the US, Japan and the Euro Area). Our results indicate that reduced import prices from China are the channel through which aggregate domestic prices in the G3 remain depressed, while the impact of the RMB exchange rate with G3 currencies appears less powerful. This finding implies that the Chinese authorities’ RMB exchange rate policy is relatively unimportant and, in particular, that a revaluation of the RMB would not do much to reduce the US trade deficit. In terms of volatility spillover, the relatively flexible RMB exchange rate against the Euro results in RMB-EUR volatility having a stronger influence than the more tightly controlled RMB-USD rate on the volatility of Chinese export prices.