International Financial Relations Under the Current Float: Evidence from Panel Data

This paper uses multi-country data for the period 1973–1994 to investigate five key equilibrium conditions in international finance—purchasing power parity, the Fisher equation, uncovered interest parity, and the equity-return analogues of the latter two. The results are largely consistent with theoretical expectations. Over the long run, purchasing power parity, uncovered interest parity and the Fisher effect prove to be rather good first approximations. The equity-return relations, though somewhat less so are nevertheless much better behaved than past studies would lead one to expect. Average rates of equity returns keep pace with inflation within countries in almost all instances; across countries, they are positively correlated with average rates of inflation. This is particularly the case when the data period is extended to include earlier decades.     

Purchasing Power Parity under Regime Shifts: An Application to Asian Countries*

This paper re‐examines the long‐run purchasing power parity (PPP) relationship for nine Asian countries relative to the USA and Japan during a period containing significant structural breaks. The relevance of considering structural breaks in PPP tests is demonstrated by utilizing the Johansen et al. (2000) procedure that allows for up to two pre‐determined structural breaks. Using conventional tests without considering breaks, one is able to reject the null of no cointegration for only four countries. The Johansen et al. procedure clearly demonstrates the importance of allowing for structural breaks and provides strong support for long‐run PPP for all the countries, regardless of the base country, except in the case of the Philippines vis‐à‐vis Japan. The Hansen–Johansen parameter constancy test indicates stability for all the countries except the Philippines relative to the USA and Malaysia relative to Japan.     

Purchasing Power Parity: Error Correction Models and Structural Breaks

This paper examines purchasing power parity (PPP) behavior using error correction models (ECM) and allowing for structural breaks. We distinguish four different objectives: first, this paper examines which variable or variables (the exchange rate and/or international relative prices) exhibit a significant error correction mechanism. Second, this paper presents empirical evidence about the adjustment velocity to the long-run equilibrium. Third, it examines the evidence regarding cointegration and the adjustment coefficients parameter instability, and finally, it analyzes whether traded and non-traded sectors exhibit different behavior. The most important results are: (1) the predominant adjustment is in the exchange rate with a larger velocity adjustment than in relative prices; (2) the evidence suggests that when there are strong depreciations or appreciations in the exchange rate, the international relative prices adjust (i.e., there is evidence of pass-through); (3) the dynamic adjustment to equilibrium is, in general, stable.     

Study on the Method of Regional Purchasing Power Parity in China

China is a country with great territory and the price level has remarkable disparity among various regions, which affects the accuracy of many economic indexes. Using the calculating way of the purchasing power parity of the United Nations International Comparison Project （ICP）, this paper chooses 127 samples of commodities and services as comparison programs for 31 provinces and calculates purchasing power parity of every province in 2002 by taking Shanghai as a norm. The aim of this article is to study the method of regional purchasing power parity of our country.     

Searching Stationarity in the Real Exchange Rates: Application of the SUR Estimator

In the foreign exchange market, all national currencies are priced in terms of a common numeraire (usually the U.S. dollar); hence, cross-currency correlation is likely to be important in the empirical investigation of stationarity. Recently, the SUR estimator is employed to account for the effects of cross-currency correlation on the long-run purchasing power parity. Under the SUR framework, this paper examines the joint unit-root null and the ADF-based panel unit root. Data of 30 currencies, spans from 1980 to 1999, are used for empirical analysis and the results are supportive.     

Current-Account Reversals in Developing Countries: The Role of Fundamentals

This paper studies episodes of current-account reversal in developing countries (DCs) in the period 1965–1994. First, a number of persistent shifts (reversals) in the current-account balance dynamics are identified by structural break and segmented trend tests; then, the relationship between these reversals and a set of fundamentals suggested by the intertemporal approach to the current account is investigated in a panel-data set-up. We find that fundamentals play a different role in episodes of persistent deterioration or improvement of the current-account balance in DCs.     

Linear and Nonlinear Cointegration of Purchasing Power Parity: Further Evidence from Developing Countries

Abstract

The last quarter of the twentieth century was characterized by economic reforms in many formerly state-dominated economies. Among them, the reform attempts by China and India have attracted increasing attention in the popular media and academic research. This paper contribute to this research by using institutional theory to analyse the reforms in China and India and develop a framework to explain how reforms evolve. This study contributes to the theoretical understanding of the dynamics of reform, helps policy-makers to formulate reform strategy, and international business executives to project the developmental trends in two of the world's largest emerging markets.     

Purchasing Power Parity during Currency Crises: A Panel Unit Root Test under Structural Breaks

We investigate the stationarity of real exchange rates using a panel of Asian and South and Latin American countries by applying a new panel unit root test that is robust to structural breaks due to currency crises. It turns out that the long-run PPP relationship is relevant for the Asian countries, which experienced a flexible exchange rate, whereas for the South and Latin American countries, for which the exchange rate has been pegged to the U.S. dollar for a long time, the PPP relationship breaks down. In Asian countries PPP appears to hold before the 1997 crisis, which is not the case for the South and Latin American countries. This suggests that the Asian flu corresponds to a second-generation type of crises, whereas the 1995 Mexican tequila fits the first-generation models better. JEL no. C13, C33, E41     

The voluntary organizations and democracy in Korea: A civil society perspective

After achieving the dramatic progress of democracy recently, the preconditions of democracy in Korea are a major concern for scholars at home and abroad; These days, therefore, finding factors for successful democracy might be an important agenda for Korea as much as for all less‐developed countries. Among many factors conducive to democracy, this study emphasizes the important role played by voluntary associations as mediating and countervailing mechanisms to both the central government and markets. Even though there have been many factors at work in shaping political democracy, Korean experience during last three decades calls attention to the importance of the transition of the resurrection of civil society through an explosion of autonomous interest group expression and activity. The Korean experience supports that the organization of the citizenry is an indispensable condition for the development and maintenance of democracy.     

Purchasing Power Parity before and after the Adoption of the Euro

This paper examines the purchasing power parity (PPP) hypothesis for the post–Bretton Woods era including the period after the introduction of the euro. The study applies a new nonlinear unit root test to the bilateral real exchange rates (RERs) of both European and other industrial countries with the French franc and German mark (and the euro after 1998), as well as the US dollar as numeraire currencies. The results of the study provide stronger support for PPP than any earlier studies of bilateral PPP for industrial countries and suggest that (1) PPP tends to hold well within the European Union (EU) even before the adoption of the euro, (2) the evidence for PPP becomes more significant for both EU and non-EU countries when the sample period is extended to the euro era, and (3) convergence toward PPP between the EU countries, especially between the euro-area countries, tends to be nonlinear, while it is likely to be linear for the non-EU industrial countries. JEL no. F31, F33, G15, C22     

Exchange Rate Variability and the Macro-economy: Evidence from Developing and Developed Countries

Abstract

Using annual data, the paper studies the time-series evidence regarding the allocation of fluctuations in the exchange rate between demand components, real growth, and price inflation in a sample of developing and advanced countries. The evidence reveals patterns of interaction between the macro-economy and exchange rate variability. Across developing countries, appreciation decreases the cost of imports and price inflation, while depreciation shrinks the output supply, indicating high dependency on imported goods. The reduction in output supply correlates with higher inflation and an increase in the import value. In contrast, the evidence of the negative effect of currency appreciation on output growth is more prevalent across advanced countries, while depreciation stimulates competitiveness, resulting in higher demand for exports, investment and consumption. Across developing countries, exchange rate variability decreases trend real growth and increases trend price inflation. Across advanced countries, exchange rate variability decreases trend real growth while increasing the variability of price inflation and import growth. Minimizing variability of the exchange rate would be beneficial to sustain higher growth and reduce cyclical variability in developing and advanced countries.     

Real Exchange Rate Stationarity in Latin America and Relative Purchasing Power Parity: A Regime Switching Approach

This paper tests for long-run purchasing power (PPP) among a sample of six Latin American economies. The key contribution of this paper is in terms of the econometric methodology where non-stationarity of the real exchange rate is tested within a Markov regime-switching framework. In contrast to existing studies, this paper defines two new concepts of PPP where one allows for the possibility that real exchange behaviour either switches between stationary and non-stationary regimes (partial PPP), or switches between stationary regimes characterised by differing degrees of persistence (varied PPP). Whereas standard univariate unit root testing suggests that Latin American real exchange rates are generally non-stationary, employment of the regime-switching methodology indicates that most of the sample is characterised by the existence of two distinct stationary regimes. Further analysis indicates that the high rates of inflation and exchange rate volatility experienced in Latin American have given some impetus towards facilitating long-run PPP.

Business Cycles in Developing Countries: Are They Different?

This paper demonstrates that developing countries differ considerably from their developed counterparts when focus is on the nature and characteristics of short-run macroeconomic fluctuations. Cycles are generally shorter, and the stylized facts of business cycles across countries are more diverse than those of the rather uniform industrialized countries. Supply-side models are generally superior in explaining changes in output, but a “one-size fits all” approach in formulating policy is inappropriate. Our results also illustrate the critical importance of understanding business regularities as a stepping-stone in the process of designing appropriate stabilization policy and macroeconomic management in developing countries.     

发展中国家技术创新存在的特殊问题研究

发展中国家的技术创新和发达国家的技术创新有一定的共性,但发展中国家的技术创新还存在一些特殊问题:发展中国家技术创新起点低,市场动力不足,技术创新投入有限,发达国家的技术封锁和技术压制,技术轨道锁定等。文章从发展中国家的技术创新存在的特殊问题出发,结合技术轨道理论提出相应对策。     

Purchasing Power Parity in South East Asian Countries Economies: A Cointegration Approach

This paper presents findings from a study of the long-run purchasing power parity (PPP) conditions in five Asian economies. The cointegration tests using exchange rates and price indices from end-of-quarter observations over the last twenty years reject the PPP proposition for all countries. The absolute version of the PPP hypothesis is tested next by using lower frequency, that is, semi-annual and annual, data. In general these tests also failed to support the long-run PPP hypothesis. Further analysis using the Johansen-Juselius (1990) multivariate approach also failed to support the hypothesis.     

蒙代尔-弗莱明模型在发展中大国的适用与延伸

M-F模型是开放经济宏观经济学的基本模型,其存在的缺陷和局限是理论拓展的主要方向。本文对M-F模型的前提假定和分析过程作出了放松和修正,使其适用于发展中大国的情形。并在M-F模型的货币政策效应分析基础上,提出M-F模型在发展中大国的延伸分析方法,即Semi-M-F模型分析方法,指出发展中大国的货币政策是部分起作用的。最后,对Semi-M-F模型分析方法在中国的应用进行评述。     

Asian Currency Crisis and the Generalized PPP: Evidence from the Far East

The present paper investigates the effects of the Asian currency crisis of 1997–1998 on the generalized PPP between several real exchange rates of the Far East countries. Monthly log of real exchange rates of the currencies of Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines and South Korea vis-à-vis the US dollar and the Japanese yen during 1990–2004 are applied in the investigation. Further tests are conducted between exchange rates vis-à-vis the Thai baht. Tests are conducted for periods before and after the crisis. Results from the Johansen method of multivariate cointegration show a substantial change in the relationship between these real exchange rates before and after the Asian currency crisis. This result is found using rates based on three currencies: US dollar, yen and baht.     

论经济全球化对发展中国家的影响及其应对策略

经济全球化使各种生产要素在全球范围内优化组合和资源优化配置,从而促进全球经济的迅速发展,其特征是生产、交换、分配、消费的全球化。它是一把“双刃剑”。它在推动全球生产力大发展、加速世界经济增长的同时,也带来一些负面影响,特别是对发展中国家而言,可以说是积极影响和消极冲击同在、发展机遇和严峻挑战并存。发展中国家要根据本国的实际情况,确定本国参与经济全球化的步骤、速度和深度,采取有利的战略决策和方针政策,完善其应对策略。