Real Exchange Rates and Fundamentals: A Cross‐Country Perspective

This paper employs newly constructed measures for productivity differentials, external imbalances, and commodity terms of trade to estimate a panel cointegrating relationship between real exchange rates and a set of fundamentals for a sample of 48 industrial countries and emerging markets. It finds evidence of a strong positive relation between the consumer price index‐based real exchange rate and commodity terms of trade. The estimated impact of productivity growth differentials between traded and nontraded goods, while statistically significant, is small. Increases in net foreign assets, government consumption, and trade restrictions tend to be associated with appreciating real exchange rates.     

Real interest parity: Evidence from trade partnerships

This study investigates real interest parity (RIP) in trade partnerships, and whether RIP depends on the type of trade partnership, using short term interest rates and the Consumer Price Index (CPI) obtained from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) database between 1975 and 2016. The investigation employs unit root and stationarity tests on interest rate differentials to study RIP between countries using Germany, United States, and Japan as base countries for selected countries in the European Union (EU), member countries of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and selected Asian countries respectively. The results show evidence in favor of RIP in the selected EU countries. The interest rate differentials of Belgium, France, Italy, Spain and the UK with respect to Germany confirms a long‐run relationship and real interest rate parity. There is also evidence to support the RIP in the other trade partnerships. With the exception of Mexico, the interest rate differentials for all the countries are stationary, and each quickly reverts to its mean.     

Trade Network Centrality and Currency Risk Premia

I uncover an economic source of exposure to global risk that drives international asset prices. Countries that are more central in the global trade network have lower interest rates and currency risk premia. To explain these findings, I present a general equilibrium model in which central countries' consumption growth is more exposed to global consumption growth shocks. This causes the currencies of central countries to appreciate in bad times, resulting in lower interest rates and currency risk premia. Empirically, central countries' consumption growth covaries more with world consumption growth, further validating the proposed mechanism.     

The Share of Systematic Variation in Bilateral Exchange Rates

Sorting countries by their dollar currency betas produces a novel cross section of average currency excess returns. A slope factor (long in high beta currencies and short in low beta currencies) accounts for this cross section of currency risk premia. This slope factor is orthogonal to the high‐minus‐low carry trade factor built from portfolios of countries sorted by their interest rates. The two high‐minus‐low risk factors account for 18% to 80% of the monthly exchange rate movements. The two risk factors suggest that stochastic discount factors in complete markets' models should feature at least two global shocks to describe exchange rates.     

Burgernomics: the economics of the Big Mac standard

In the course of PPP research, much of the debate over the validity has been over the choice of an appropriate ‘basket’ for making purchasing power comparisons. The different compositions of goods and services in these baskets across countries have resulted in arguments against their usefulness for PPP purposes. This problem is augmented by the existence of productivity differentials in traded and non-traded goods across countries. Therefore we consider the use of the Big Mac as the international monetary standard as being a more palatable alternative: It is produced locally in over 80 countries around the world, with only minor changes in recipe and thus has the flavour of ‘the perfect universal commodity’. Our results indicate that the Big Mac Index is surprisingly accurate in tracking exchange rates over the long-term, which is consistent with previous PPP research findings. We subsequently enhance our PPP comparisons by taking into account the productivity differentials between countries and excluding non-traded goods from the Big Mac Index to derive the No-Frills Index.     

A fundamental theory of exchange rates and direct currency trades

In this paper we construct a two-country search model to determine the nominal exchange rate between two fiat monies. Our model allows agents to use any currency to trade for goods in all countries. However, search frictions restrict agents’ opportunities for instantaneous arbitrage, and hence make the nominal exchange rate determinate. The nominal exchange rate depends on the two countries’ economic fundamentals, including the stocks and growth rates of the two monies. Direct exchanges between currencies are essential and they imply a nominal exchange rate that is different from the relative price between the two currencies in the goods markets. There are persistent violations of the law of one price and purchasing power parity in equilibrium, despite the fact that prices are perfectly flexible and all goods are tradeable between countries. Nominal and real exchange rates can move together in the steady state in response to money growth shocks.     

A Habit-Based Explanation of the Exchange Rate Risk Premium

This paper presents a model that reproduces the uncovered interest rate parity puzzle. Investors have preferences with external habits. Countercyclical risk premia and procyclical real interest rates arise endogenously. During bad times at home, when domestic consumption is close to the habit level, the representative investor is very risk averse. When the domestic investor is more risk averse than her foreign counterpart, the exchange rate is closely tied to domestic consumption growth shocks. The domestic investor therefore expects a positive currency excess return. Because interest rates are low in bad times, expected currency excess returns increase with interest rate differentials.     

The Effects of Productivity Shocks,Financial Shocks,and Monetary Policy on Exchange Rates: An Application of the Currency Crisis Model and Implications for Emerging Market Crises

What kind of shock affects exchange rate dynamics? How much of an effect does the monetary policy have on exchange rates? To answer these questions empirically based on the currency crisis model, I use panel data on 51 emerging countries from 1980 to 2011, identify shocks, and apply instrumental variable methods. I found that both productivity shocks and shocks to a country’s risk premium affect exchange rates and a 1 percentage point increase in the policy interest rate is associated with a 1 percentage point appreciation of domestic currency. I further apply this method to Asian and Latin-American crises.     

Trade, Jobs, and the Economic Outlook for 2005

From newspaper accounts, one might think that the U.S. economy is on the verge of collapse. But the economy performed well in 2004, with real GDP growth of 3.9%, inflation at only 2.2%, unemployment down to 5.4%, and over two million jobs added to the payrolls (performance that is the envy of America's trade partners in Europe). And much the same, perhaps with moderate increases in interest rates, is expected in 2005.
Concerns about the trade deficit in particular have given rise to familiar calls to protect U.S. industries and jobs. But job losses due to "offshoring" amount to just 1% of total job losses each year, with little effect on the growth in overall employment. Manufacturing jobs have declined, but the value of manufactured goods as a share of real GDP has remained steady because of productivity growth in the manufacturing sector. Rather than spending vast amounts of money to protect jobs that are destined to go overseas, the correct policy response is to help people retrain and find employment elsewhere.
Trade deficits arise in countries that experience either investment booms or declines in savings. Thus, trade deficits are not necessarily an indication of economic failure. Foreigners invest in America because the U.S. is still the world's largest and most productive economy. And provided that the U.S. continues to offer such investment opportunities, foreign investors' search for low-risk assets will continue to be a major (if not the main) cause of the U.S. trade deficit.     

Inflation Differentials between Spain and the EMU: A DSGE Perspective

This paper estimates a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model of a currency union with nominal rigidities to explain the sources of inflation differentials between the Economic Monetary Union (EMU) and one of its member countries, Spain. The paper finds that productivity shocks account for 85% of the variability of the inflation differential. Demand shocks explain a large fraction of output growth volatility but not variability in inflation differentials. In addition, the estimated model finds evidence that inflation dynamics are different across countries in the nontradable sector only. Finally, the Balassa–Samuelson effect does not appear to be an important driver of the inflation differential during the EMU period.     

Trade concentration, openness, and deviations from purchasing power parity

Economists have often explained deviations from PPP in terms of random relative price changes. While all countries are subject to such real shock, empirical studies indicate that PPP seems to hold closer for some countries than others. This paper emphasizes two major reasons why we should expect systematic differences across countries in deviations from PPP: (a) the concentration of trade and (b) openness. The more diversified trade, the less susceptible the country to random shocks affecting individual goods, so that shifts in the PPP ratio are lower. The more open the economy, the greater the weight of traded goods in the overall price indices, so that if exchange rates are determined by traded goods prices, yet empirical tests of PPP use national price indices, PPP should hold better in more open economies.     

Asset Prices,News Shocks,and the Trade Balance

We analyze the relationship between asset prices and the trade balance estimating a Bayesian VAR for a broad set of 38 industrialized and emerging market countries. To derive model‐based identifying restrictions, we model asset price shocks as news shocks about future productivity in a two‐country dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model. Such shocks are found to exert sizable effects on the trade balance. Moreover, the effects are highly heterogeneous across countries. For instance, following a news shock that implies on impact a 10% increase in domestic equity prices relative to the rest of the world, the U.S. trade balance will worsen by up to 1.0 percentage points, but much less so for most other economies. We find that this heterogeneity appears to be linked to the financial market depth and equity home bias of countries. Moreover, the channels via wealth effects and via the real exchange rate are important for understanding the heterogeneity in the transmission.     

中韩工业制成品的贸易竞争关系分析

作为当今全球最重要的双边经贸关系之一,中韩贸易发展迅速,两国已互为重要的贸易伙伴。利用贸易竞争力指数、产业内贸易指数、GHM指数对中韩工业制成品的贸易竞争关系进行实证分析,结果显示：中韩双边工业制成品以产业间贸易为主,产业内贸易为辅;劳动密集型制成品、技术和资本密集型制成品以产业间贸易和低质量垂直型产业内贸易为主。两国的制成品贸易互补性强,中国相对处于产业分工的低端。为提升中国制成品的贸易竞争力,应采取加强技术自主研发、完善双边贸易合作机制、加快产业结构调整等措施。     

多重均衡模式与近期人民币汇率波动

当前我国外汇市场已进入多重均衡状态。在给定货物贸易和直接投资累计较大顺差、人民币利率高于外币利率的情况下,市场预期变化仍有可能对跨境资本流动和人民币汇率走势产生巨大影响。这也可以解释当前我国国际收支特点和近期人民币汇率波动。随着国际收支平衡机制的不断完善以及境内外经济金融环境的不断演变,跨境资本流动和人民币汇率双向波动有可能成为一种新常态。     

Trade integration and corporate income tax differentials

Building on recent contributions to the New Economic Geography literature, this paper analyses the relation between asymmetric market size, trade integration, and corporate income tax differentials across countries. First, relying on Ottaviano and Van Ypersele’s (J. Int. Econ. 67:25–46, 2005) foot-loose capital model of tax competition, we illustrate that trade integration reduces the importance of relative market size for differences in the extent of corporate taxation between countries. Then, using a dataset of 26 OECD countries over the period 1982–2004, we provide supportive evidence of these theoretical predictions, i.e., market size differences are strongly positively correlated with corporate income tax differences across countries, but crucially, trade integration weakens this link. These findings are obtained controlling for the potential endogeneity of trade integration and are robust to alternative specifications.     

RIP and the shift toward a monetary union: Looking for a “euro effect” by a structural break analysis with panel data

This paper aims to evaluate how the ex ante real interest rates of Euro area countries have been modified by the introduction of the euro. We use cointegration analysis with endogenous breaks in a panel data context. Our results show that the “euro effect” is significant in our sample and that after the introduction of the euro, the real interest parity (RIP) holds. This last conclusion is due to a decrease in the nominal interest rate differentials rather than to a reduction in goods and services price differentials and in the exchange rate volatility.     

Implied Spot Rates as Predictors of Currency Returns: A Note

Currency call option transactions data and the Black-Scholes option pricing model, as modified by Merton for continuous dividends and as adapted to currency options by Biger and Hull and by Garman and Kohlhagen, are used to imply spot foreign exchange rates. The proportional deviation between implied and simultaneously observed spot rates is found to be a direct and statistically significant determinant of subsequent returns on foreign currency holdings after controlling for interest rate differentials. Further, an ex ante trading rule reveals that the additional information contained in implied rates often is sufficient to generate significant economic profits.     

Trade and Growth in the New Member States: The Role of Global Value Chains

We analyze the determinants of value-added and productivity growth of New Member States in the period between 1995 and 2009. We show that in the analyzed countries, exports contributed to roughly 30% to over 40% of the overall growth of GDP while the contribution of the domestic component varied from negative to over 60%. We show that in the most important export manufacturing industries of the NMS, the growth in exported value added was substantial, while the growth of the domestic component of GDP was mostly due to the growth in services. We associate growth of sectoral productivity with the foreign direct investment and exporting but, more importantly, with the position of a sector/country in the global value chains. We show that sectors that have imported intermediate goods have experienced higher productivity growth. Moreover, faster productivity growth was found in sectors further away from the final demand and in sectors exporting intermediate goods.     

How do exchange rates co-move? A study on the currencies of five inflation-targeting countries

This paper does three things. First, it explores the type of asymmetry in exchange rate correlation for five inflation-targeting countries. We show their currencies co-move more closely with the currencies of some influential foreign countries during joint appreciations than joint depreciations against a world currency. Second, it establishes empirically the linkage between interest rate differentials and exchange rate correlation. We find evidence that both widening and narrowing interest rate differentials will reduce the correlation. Third, it proposes a new version of the asymmetric dynamic conditional correlation model. The model proves to be capable of providing great insight into the two issues investigated.