The behavior of foreign currency holdings during currency crises: Causes and consequences

This paper evaluates the current literature on dollarization and finds it to be disappointing in its ability to explain many of the prevailling features of the dollarizations experiences in Latin America, Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union. The paper takes a different approach to the standard empirical studies, which usually extend a demand for money function to include international variables, by analyzing foreign currency holding behaviors in response to the sustainability and credibility of the exchange rate regime. The results are very promising and explain some of the previously unexplained phenomena which arise from dollarization.     

Inflation Targeting: What Can the ECB Learn From the Recent Experience of the Bank of England?

Establishment of the European Central Bank presents a rare opportunity to define the operations of a central bank without a prior track record. This paper asks what might be learnt from the recent experience of inflation targeting at the Bank of England before the ECB specifies an, as yet undefined, operational target. We consider whether there should be single or multiple targets and which inflation measure should be used, if at all. If inflation is targeted then a forecast of its value becomes the intermediate variable. This raises an issue of transparency and the compensating supply of information necessary to fill the gap, but too much 'openness' can also be problematic. The ECB must be accountable and the contracting approach may be useful although being seen to 'say' and 'do' the same thing is ultimately most important.     

A BUFFER STOCK MODEL OF THE DEMAND FOR MONEY BY THE PERSONAL SECTOR

This paper examines the forward-looking rational expectations buffer stock model of Cuthbertson and Taylor (1987) in the context of the personal sector of the UK. The buffer stock model is evaluated for both narrow and broad money definitions in the UK using the encompassing the VAR methodology of Mizon (1984). This suggests that the buffer stock model is a congruent model, and that the broad definition is the most appropriate aggregate with which to model buffering behaviour — in line with previous studies, Mizen (1992). Further analysis of the models, in the light of Hendry (1988), confirms this view.     

Estimating monetary reaction functions at near zero interest rates

The importance of truncated distributions for bias in estimation is demonstrated for a Japanese policy reaction function. Due to the proximity of a zero lower bound (ZLB) on interest rates, coefficient estimates can be biased upwards. This paper illustrates the importance of measuring and correcting estimates for this bias using Japan's unique experience of prolonged low inflation/deflation.     

Monetary Policy, Corporate Financial Composition and Real Activity

This article addresses two fundamental questions about monetarypolicy, credit conditions and corporate activity. First, canwe relate differences in the composition of debt between tightand loose periods of monetary policy to firm characteristicslike size, age, indebtedness or risk? Second, do differencesin companies’ financial compositions matter for real activityof firms such as inventory and employment growth? The articleoffers some evidence from firms in the UK manufacturing sectorwhich suggests that the composition of debt differs considerablywith characteristics such as size, age, debt and risk, it alsoshows a significant effect from financial composition and cashflow to inventory and employment growth. (JEL codes: E32, E44,E51)     

A re‐interpretation of the linear quadratic model when inventories and sales are polynomially cointegrated

Estimation of the linear quadratic model, the workhorse of the inventory literature, traditionally takes inventories and sales to be first‐difference stationary series, and the ratio of the two variables to be stationary. However, these assumptions do not always match the properties of the data for the last two decades in the United States. We propose a model that allows for the non‐stationary characteristics of the data, using polynomial cointegration. We show that the closed‐form solution has other recent models as special cases. The resulting model performs well on aggregate and disaggregated data. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The empirical relationship between UK net corporate borrowing and stockbuilding

The literatures on net corporate borrowing and stockbuildingby firms are both based on a simple linear-quadratic (L-Q) model,but they have been developed independently. This paper exploresthe possibility that a firm may jointly optimise its borrowingand stockbuilding decisions, where previous papers have imposed‘decision rule decompositions’. The resulting modelis estimated using UK corporate data and demonstrates that netcorporate borrowing and stockbuilding are indeed used as substitutesin production smoothing.     

The response of the external finance premium in Asian corporate bond markets to financial characteristics,financial constraints and two financial crises

Empirical investigation of the external finance premium has been conducted on the margin between internal finance and bank borrowing or equities but little attention has been given to corporate bonds, especially for the emerging Asian market. In this paper, we hypothesize that balance sheet indicators of creditworthiness could affect the external finance premium for bonds as they do for premia in other markets. Using bond-specific and firm-specific data for China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Korea, Philippines, Singapore and Thailand during 1995–2009 we find that firms with better financial health face lower external finance premia in all countries. When we introduce firm-level heterogeneity, we show that financial variables appear to be both statistically and quantitatively more important for financially constrained firms. Finally, when we examine the effects of the 1997–1998 Asian crisis and the 2007–2009 global financial crisis, we find that the sensitivity of the premium is greater for constrained firms during the Asian crisis compared to other times.     

Foreign currency borrowing,exports and firm performance: evidence from a currency crisis

This paper develops a simple signaling model of foreign currency borrowing that yields predictions about firm survival and performance during a currency crisis. Using a large panel of firm level data for South Korea we offer empirical support for many of the predictions of our model, while others support predictions that cannot be tested using our data. Our paper demonstrates that although firms that borrow in foreign currency are more likely to exit after the currency collapses, those that continue to produce perform better. Among them, the best performers are exporters whose foreign sales are more competitively priced under a devalued currency.