Productivity Growth in the Chinese Economy by Industry and the Role of Foreign Capital

I. IntroductionIt is well known that China’s reform and open-up policy initiated in 1978 had an extremelylarge impact on the Chinese economy. This policy represented an about-face against thetraditional self-reconstruction strategy that China had maintained since the founding ofthe people’s Republic in 1949. Although China’s economy temporarily fell into confusionfor a few years after the Tian-an-men incident in 1989, China continued to record high GDPgrowth. Moreover, after Deng Xiao…     

Asian Currency Crisis and the International Monetary Fund, 10 Years Later: Overview*

This paper is an overview of the Asian currency crisis in Thailand, Indonesia, and South Korea in 1997–1998, with an emphasis on the role of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). It provides a detailed account of the development of the crisis and analyses and evaluates the content of IMF advice and its consequences. The size of the IMF package for each of these three countries is judged to have been too small. This paper also has a comparative perspective; the Mexican crisis is reviewed as a precursor to the Asian crisis to see what the IMF learned, and how it prepared, for future crises. The causes of the crises and IMF conditionality for the post‐Asian crisis countries, Russia, Brazil, Turkey, and Argentina, are also compared to the Asian crisis countries. By agreeing to maintain a fixed exchange rate, for example, the IMF is judged to have been “softer” in its approach to the post‐Asian crisis countries.     

Robust Monetary Framework for China

I. Introduction China has made tremendous gains in terms of economic growth in the last 15 years, by inviting foreign direct investment and increasing manufacturing production and exports. The currency unification (devaluation of the official rate and unification of the official and market rates) in 1994 also contributed to the efficiency in the monetary and foreign exchange systems. China was not severely affected by the Asian currency crisis of 1997–1998, and instead China helped the regio…     

The Long-Run Purchasing Power Parity for the Yen: Historical Overview

This paper examines the long-run behavior of the yen/dollar real exchange rate. Several series are spliced to compose long Japanese consumer and wholesale price indices, long U.S. consumer and wholesale price indices, and the yen/dollar exchange rate, from 1879 to 1995. The CPI-based real exchange rate tended to depreciate in the pre-WWII periods, but strongly appreciated in the post-WWII periods. The WPI-based real exchange rate did not show any trend in the pre-WWII periods, but appreciated moderately in the post-WWII periods. The unit root tests were not rejected for the CPI-based real exchange rate series, but some of them were rejected for the WPI-based real exchange rate series, suggesting mean reversion property only for the WPI-based series. The Balassa–Samuelson hypothesis to explain a drift and/or a trend in the real exchange rate series had only a weak support.J. Japan. Int. Econ.,December 1997,11(4), pp. 502–521. Institute of Economic Research, Hitotsubashi University, Naka 2-1, Kunitachi, Tokyo 186, Japan.     

Dynamics of quote and deal prices in the foreign exchange market

We empirically investigate price fluctuations of yen-dollar exchange rate using the high-frequency data recorded in the electronic broking system for seven-year period. The distribution of quote price changes has symmetric fat-tails approximated by a power law; however, that of deal price is asymmetrical. The autocorrelation function and diffusion of price changes indicate that quote price exhibits anti-correlation feature in short time scale, whereas deal price is essentially uncorrelated. The bid-ask spread shows power-law distribution and long range temporal correlations similar to that observed in absoute price changes.