The Effects of Macroeconomic Policies in a Mercantilist Economy

By introducing money and foreign exchange in the Zou (1997) model of mercantilism, the paper shows the effects of macroeconomic policies in mercantilist economies. It is shown that in the long run, consumption and foreign asset accumulation increases as a result of stronger mercantilist sentiments, permanent increases in the consumption tax, increases in the monetary growth rate and purchases of foreign bonds. In the short run, however, macroeconomic disturbances including the mercantilist sentiments, the monetary growth rate, and the consumption tax have negative effects on current consumption and positive effects on current foreign asset accumulation, while purchasing foreign bonds has positive effects on both current consumption and current foreign asset accumulation. The theoretical explorations may provide a theoretical structure for hoarding international reserves and export-led growth strategy utilized by emerging market economies.     

Optimal Reserves and Short‐Term Interest Rates in a Model of Bank Runs

A global game framework of bank runs is used to analyse a bank's choice of its reserve level and short‐term interest rate. Higher level of reserves and a lower short‐term interest rate would decrease the probability of bank runs. When the bank's reserve policy is transparent, it will hold excess reserves to discourage withdrawals by patient depositors. This inefficiency of excess reserves increases with the proportion of impatient depositors. When the bank has private information about its reserve level, it will follow a more risky strategy of choosing lower reserves and higher early return than what maximizes depositor welfare and increases the probability of bank runs.     

出口退税、贸易盈余和外汇储备的一般均衡分析与中国的实证

本文构建了一个简单的大国开放经济一般均衡模型,从理论上探讨了外汇储备从贸易盈余时的短期均衡到贸易平衡时的长期均衡的动态变化过程,并在此基础上量化分析了降低出口退税率对长期均衡时的外汇储备的影响。研究表明,降低出口退税率在短期内对减少贸易盈余和控制外汇储备增量有一定的帮助,但长期来看则与出口产品的价格弹性密切相关,只有降低那些价格弹性较大的产品的出口退税率,才能够有效地减少长期均衡时的外汇储备,否则可能产生适得其反的效果。中国数据的实证研究支持了理论模型的结论。由于中国的出口产品总体缺乏价格弹性,因此,近年来实行的一系列出口退税政策改革在长期内使国家外汇储备出现了一定程度的增加。本文最后提出了相关的政策建议。     

What Drove the Massive Hoarding of International Reserves in Emerging Economies? A Time‐varying Approach

Existing empirical models fail to explain the surge in the accumulation of foreign exchange reserves by emerging countries during the last decade. This paper provides an estimate of the demand for international reserves on a panel of emerging countries using a time‐varying panel smooth transition regression (TV‐PSTR) model to relax the assumption of coefficient stability in the relationship. Evidence is dound that the parameters are not constant. In addition, it is observed that the coefficients remained relatively stable until 2000 and then increased gradually and strongly thereafter. The specification provided here accounts for an acceleration that linear specifications fail to explain. Finally, it is found that mercantilist motives are the major driver of this acceleration.     

Revisiting Exports and Foreign Direct Investment in Vietnam

Since 1986, Vietnam has undertaken various reform measures in the trade and foreign investment area. This paper finds significant contributions of world trade, and competitiveness and liberalization effects to Vietnam's export growth over the period 1997–2008. Vietnam's exports became more competitive and better complemented the import demand of Vietnam's trade partners. In addition, dynamic comparative advantage became evident in many products, but significant room remains for improving export competitiveness. Foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows also increased and helped stimulate Vietnam's exports. FDI inflows have increased in both the short‐ and long‐term, yet are only of a limited magnitude. This necessitates more effective measures to enhance the linkages between FDI and domestic enterprises.     

国际资本流动“突然停止”、消费平滑与最优外汇储备持有量*

通常认为外汇储备具有抵御外部冲击、平滑居民消费、增进社会福利的作用。循此逻辑,文章构建了三部门模型模拟了货币当局面临资本流动“突然停止”时,出于平滑消费目的的最优储备持有行为。研究发现：中国静态最优外汇储备量约占GDP的1926%;中国实际储备与最优储备的差额自2010年起稳定在18万亿美元;最优外汇储备量与“突然停止”发生概率及其导致的产出损失、短期外债规模、居民存款规模及危机时的资产置换比率、风险规避程度正相关,与银行备付金比率、国际风险溢价程度负相关;从危机应急的角度看,提高银行备付金比率、控制居民存款置换外币比例能有效节约外汇储备,但从长远来看控制国内短期外债规模、确保银行稳健运营才是应对国际资本“突然停止”风险的关键。     

Foreign Exchange Accumulation and the Entrapment of Chinese Monetary Power: Towards a Balanced Growth Regime?

This article criticises the notion that China's foreign exchange reserves have strengthened its monetary power. While some scholars have argued that China's international monetary influence has been ‘entrapped’ by the domestic interests of its export sector, a one-sided focus on the export sector fails to identify the significant constraints on its macroeconomic autonomy. This article proposes an extension of the concept of entrapment that draws attention to the key role of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and their domestic fixed-asset investment in its growth regime: China's external monetary dependency – which is understood as both export dependency and the need to maintain foreign exchange accumulation – has been caused by a disparity between fixed-asset investment and private consumption that reflects a redistribution of income from the household sector to the SOE sector. In particular, I expose the SOE sector's rising interests in foreign exchange accumulation by uncovering a mutually reinforcing dynamic between China's external monetary dependence and the financial repression of its banking system. By entrenching an investment-led growth regime that provides key benefits the SOE sector, this dynamic is found to have seriously constrained the macroeconomic policy autonomy of Chinese authorities to rebalance growth away from investments and exports towards private consumption.     

A Macroeconomic Perspective on Reserve Accumulation

This paper nests the buffer stock model within a standard open-economy model to capture two motives for international reserves accumulation—the insurance motive and the export-led growth motive. The model is solved for two exchange-rate policies, discretion and a rule with escape clause. It illustrates the behavior of international reserves and other macroeconomic variables when the policymaker pursues output and inflation stabilization and recognizes the supply of reserves can constrain the choice of exchange rate and the choice of exchange rate affects the supply of reserves. When output is below potential, it is optimal under both discretion and the rule to adopt a weak currency and promote export-led growth to achieve output and inflation stabilization. This policy leads to reserve accumulation and is consistent with the behavior of China. When reserves are low initially, welfare is higher when the policymaker follows a rule.     

The role of international reserves holding in buffering external shocks

An extended literature analyses the accumulation foreign exchange holding observed in many developing and emerging countries since the 2000s. Empirical studies on the self-insurance motive suggest that high-reserves economies are more resilient to financial crises and to international capital inflows volatility. They show also that pre-crisis foreign reserve accumulation explains post-crisis growth. However, some papers suggest that the relationship between international reserves holding and reduced vulnerability is nonlinear, meaning that reserve holding is subject to diminishing returns. This article devotes more attention to the potential nonlinear relationship between the foreign reserves holding and macroeconomic resilience to shocks. For a sample of nine emerging economies, we assess to what extent the accumulation of international reserves allows to mitigate negative impacts of external shocks on the output gap. While a major part of the literature focuses on the global financial crisis, we investigate this question by considering two sub-periods: 1995–2003 and 2004–2013. We implement threshold VAR model in which the structure is allow to change if the threshold variable crosses a certain estimated threshold. We find that the effectiveness of reserve holding to improve the resilience of domestic economies to shocks has increased over time. Hence, the diminishing returns of foreign reserve holding stressed in the previous literature must be qualified.     

Reserve accumulation and exchange rate policy in China: The authoritarian elite's aim of political survival

Since the Asian financial crisis of 1997–1998, China has significantly increased its foreign exchange reserves. We argue that the resulting abnormal levels of currency reserves accumulated by Chinese authorities are not intended to maximize the citizenry's economic welfare, as in a mercantilist or a precautionary account, but rather to forestall the elite's own political demise. This goal has been pursued mainly by generating large current account surpluses through manipulation of the renminbi exchange rate. The Chinese elite has sought to promote the acceptance of this policy by influencing the costs of collective action taken by winners and losers.     

The export price index with the effect of variety and an empirical analysis

The standard international trade models predict that economic growth induces decreasing export prices. Korea has recorded sustainable economic and export growth, and its export prices have been deteriorating over the last decades. Unlike the standard assumption of one good per country, the new theoretical approach by Krugman [Krugman, P. (1980) ‘Scale Economies, Product Differentiation, and Pattern of Trade’. American Economic Review 70, 950–959, Krugman, P. (1989) ‘Differences in income elasticities and trends in real exchange rates’. European Economic Review, 33, 1055–1085.], and Helpman and Krugman [Helpman, E. and Krugman, P. (1985), Market structure and foreign trade: increasing returns, imperfect competition, and international economy, The MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.] takes into account varieties of goods produced in each country. And many studies suggest that traditional estimates without variety effect have been rather under-stated. Therefore this paper develops a proper modeling for quantifying the impact of export variety on an exact export price index. Throughout the period (1984–2000), the conventional export price index without variety effect leads to under-state Korea's export price by 89.3%. This paper shows that the fall in Korean export prices has been offset by the effect of export variety. This paper emphasizes the effect of export variety on international trade.     

Taking a Turnpike: A Korean Perspective*

Catch‐up is very much like taking interstate turnpikes to travel from a destitute backward state to an advanced state of material affluence in the shortest time. This paper presents an overview of the catch‐up process in Korea, analyzing the process of taking a turnpike. It delineates the advantage of export‐oriented growth strategy and examines the institutionalization of an export‐oriented regime in Korea. It amplifies the nature of Korea's “governed” market policies that bred the seeds of eventual catastrophe in light of the 1997 crisis that has dramatically revealed Korea's Achilles heel. It also addresses the political economy of switching turnpikes, amplifying the necessity of a fundamental institutional restructuring at certain points in the catch‐up process.     

Accumulation of reserves and keeping up with the Joneses: The case of LATAM economies

In this paper we explore the ‘Mrs. Machlup's Wardrobe’ hypothesis to understand the growing trend of Latin American economies amassing large stocks of international reserves. Using annual data from 1980 to 2007, we examine the relevance of the argument that economies continue to add to their existing reserves stock in order to keep up with the Joneses. We find strong evidence of presence of the Joneses effect. The effect is robust to the inclusion of traditional determinants of reserve accumulation as well as region specific factors including commodity exports that set the Latin American economies apart from other emerging economies.     

The Korea-Vietnam trade and the bilateral exchange rate: Asymmetric evidence from commodity trade data

The contribution of the current article is to detect the asymmetric impact that exchange rate fluctuations have on Korea's trade with Vietnam. To this end, the nonlinear autoregressive distributed lag (NARDL) process is applied to export and import data disaggregated by 25 commodities. We uncover that the ups and downs of exchange rates have an asymmetric impact on some, though not all, types of Korea's commodities exported to and imported from Vietnam in both the long- and short-run.     

社会责任行为、制度环境与企业国际竞争力

企业国际竞争力是企业管理领域的热点话题,本文对于社会责任行为与企业国际竞争力的关系机理及制度环境调节效应展开研究.以我国A股上市公司2010—2019年数据为研究样本,实证分析社会责任行为对企业国际竞争力的动态影响.研究表明,社会责任信息披露对企业国际竞争力的影响存在时滞性,发布社会责任报告短期内对企业国际竞争力无明显影响,长期则可以提升企业国际竞争力;社会责任表现具有时效性,良好的社会责任绩效对于滞后一期的企业国际竞争力具有显著的提升效应;进一步研究发现,制度环境对于企业社会责任动态影响企业国际竞争力具有正向调节作用.研究结论对中国企业国际竞争力的培育和提高具有借鉴意义.     

New trade theory,non-price competitiveness and export performance

This paper develops a demand function for Greece's exports of manufactures according to New Trade Theory. Non-price competitiveness plays a vital role in explaining export performance and failure to include it in the export equation may lead to mis-specification error. Foreign income has a moderately high effect on exports in the long run and no effect in the short run. Exports are also sensitive to domestic and competitors' prices in the long run, but cost and price competitiveness elasticities are close to one, indicating that Greek exporters have some ability to compete on the basis of prices.     

Reserve accumulation and financial crises: From individual protection to systemic risk

This paper provides a new perspective on the relationship between countries׳ international reserve holdings and financial crises: while the “local” view holds that reserves may prevent domestic crises, it overlooks that the accumulation of reserves relaxes the financing constraint of the reserve currency country and may cause a financial crisis in the centre, which is transmitted globally. According to this “global” view reserve accumulation might destabilize the international financial system. Since the crisis affects all countries alike, the accumulation of reserves imposes a negative externality on non-accumulating countries.We integrate this idea in a theoretical model of the optimal amount of reserves and illustrate the gap between local and global optimality: the consideration of systemic risk lowers the demand for reserves. Moreover, if a supranational authority determines the optimal level of reserves, it internalizes the negative externality and accumulates fewer reserves. A macroprudential tax on reserve hoardings might implement the socially optimal solution. Our calibration analysis shows that these considerations are economically significant: they lower the optimal amount of reserves in the benchmark case by 45%.     

Thailand's Policy Challenges

Thailand's real gross domestic product growth has fallen to a permanently lower trend, making it the worst performer in the Southeastern Asian region. The export sector, the country's long‐standing growth engine, has sputtered due to the declining competitiveness of the manufacturing sector. Chronic political instability during the last two decades has resulted in the adoption of short‐sighted policies, in particular, populist policies designed specifically to garner votes rather than improve the long‐term productivity of the business sector. The military coup was expected to restore political stability and end costly populist policies introduced by elected civil governments. Unfortunately, as the military government develops its long‐term political aspirations, it, too, seeks the assistance of populist policies to ensure its political success. Thailand has promulgated laws and regulations to ensure fiscal discipline, but it has yet to be seen whether the letter of the law can help prevent such populist policies in practice.     

我国产业国际竞争力的现状与评价

本文基于我国产业国际竞争力发展的现状,对产业国际竞争力的评价方法、评价指标进行了系统分析,选择显示性优势指数、贸易竞争力指数、国际市场占有率这3个指标,利用出口数据评价方法,对我国整体产业国际竞争力进行分析,对我国整体产业及主要出口产品的国际竞争力进行了计算。计算结果显示:我国农业原材料出口产品的比较优势较弱,而出口制成品的比较优势很强;但从整体上看,我国产业国际竞争力还较低。     

The Path and Threshold Effect of Digitalization on the Competitiveness of China's Manufacturing Export

Since its traditional comparative advantages are on the wane, China should use digital economy to enhance its competitiveness of manufacturing export. Based on microscopic data of various regions in China from 2013 to 2020, this paper studies the relationship between digital economy and China’s competitiveness of manufacturing export, the internal mechanism of their influence, and the boundary conditions for the establishment of the relationship between digital economy and competitiveness of manufacturing export. Our conclusions include that: there is a significant positive spatial correlation between digital economy and export competitiveness; digital economy can not only enhance the export competitiveness of the region, but also have a positive impact on that of adjacent regions; innovation efficiency, the accumulation of human capital and synergistic agglomeration exerts a mediating effect when digital economy impacts China’s export competitiveness; and with the share of import trade as the threshold variable, the facilitating effect of digital economy on the export competitiveness of the western region is lower than that of the eastern region before the threshold, but significantly higher than that of the eastern , central and northeastern regions as well as the whole country after the threshold. Therefore, China should vigorously promote the construction of new digital infrastructure in the western region, and give full play to the role of new digital infrastructure in promoting trade upgrade. Through the improvement of human capital quality, the centralized development of digital economy and the overall improvement of innovation efficiency, we should gradually improve the international competitiveness of China’s export enterprises.