Purchasing power parity in transition countries: Old wine with new bottle

This study questions whether the long-run purchasing power parity (PPP) holds in the transition economies (Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romanian, and Russia) for the period from January 1995 to October 2011. We employ the Sequential Panel Selection Method (SPSM) procedure using the Panel KSS unit root test with a Fourier function, a novel approach to panel unit root testing. The SPSM approach classifies the whole panel into a group of stationary and non-stationary series and is able to account for structural breaks, nonlinearity, and cross-section dependence. The results indicate that the PPP holds true for more than half of these transition countries studied, with the exception of Hungarian, the Czech Republic and the Russia. The findings have important policy implications for the transition countries.     

Euro-dollar real exchange rate misalignments： Is the euro overvalued？

This paper estimates both short term and long run relationship between the real bilateral EUR-USD exchange rate and its real determinants. In the long run, it finds that the non-stationary real exchange rate in levels is linearly co-integrated with real variables. Using an ordinary least squares method with error correction mechanism, it investigates real EUR-USD exchange rate misalignment in the short term. By analysing real variables and their influence on international trade and capital movements, potential economic policies capable of maintaining equilibrium in the balance of payments and avoiding currency overvaluation are considered.     

International comparison in historical perspective: Reconstructing the 1934-1936 Benchmark purchasing power parity for Japan, Korea, and Taiwan

This article provides the first expenditure-based estimate of purchasing power parity (PPP) converters for 1934-1936 Japan, Korea, and Taiwan. We match all together 70-80 types of goods and services for private consumption, government expenditure and investment using three levels of weights derived from various expenditure surveys. We find that the 1934-1936 average prices of Korea for private consumption, investment, and government expenditure were about 0.86, 0.89, and 0.98 times that of Japan, respectively; and for Taiwan 0.84, 0.87, and 0.95, respectively. This gives the 1934-1936 Korea and Taiwan overall GDE average price levels of 0.87 and 0.86 that of Japan, respectively. Our new benchmark estimate is an improvement over existing converters based either on exchange rates or the 1990 backward projection method, which is embedded with index number biases. It provides a vital link for a long-term overview of structural change, ethnic income distribution, and the historical convergence for these three economies.     

Was it really a dollar peg?: The exchange rate policies of East Asian countries, 1980–1997

This paper examines the exchange rate policies of East Asian countries during the period preceding the currency crisis of 1997, in an attempt to ascertain the extent to which they could be considered, as they frequently are, as a dollar peg. We do so by estimating the implicit weights of foreign currencies in the nominal exchange rate determination of East Asian currencies by means of a time-varying parameter model. The crucial element of our approach concerns how the weight of the Japanese yen was altered in response to the movement of the yen–dollar exchange rate. It is found that, while the weight of the U.S. dollar was large and the weight of the Japanese yen was small for the period as a whole, the weight of the yen was raised in some of the countries in the early 1990s. In particular, the Korean and Malaysian authorities raised the weight of the yen when the yen depreciated against the U.S. dollar, while the Singaporean authorities raised the weight of the yen when the yen appreciated against the dollar.     

Aggregate trading behaviour of technical models and the yen/dollar exchange rate 1976–2007

The study analyzes the interaction between the trading behaviour of 1024 moving average and momentum models and the fluctuations of the yen/dollar exchange rate. I show first that these models would have exploited exchange rate trends quite profitably between 1976 and 2007. I then show that the aggregate transactions and positions of technical models exert an excess demand pressure on currency markets since they are mostly on the same side of the market. When technical models produce trading signals almost all of them are either buying or selling, when they maintain open positions they are either long or short. A strong interaction prevails between exchange rate movements and the transactions triggered by technical models. An initial rise of the exchange rate due to news, e.g., is systematically lengthened through a sequence of technical buy signals.     

Evidence of long-run purchasing power parity: analysis of real asian exchange rates in terms of the Japanese yen

In this paper we find strong new evidence in favour of the long-run purchasing power parity (PPP) hypothesis in the bilateral real exchange rates between the Japanese yen and the currencies of the most important southeast Asian economies only when the presence of several possible structural breaks of the series is taken into account. Such evidence for PPP is weaker for these southeast Asian exchange rates with the US dollar, the German mark and the Australian dollar.     

SHORT‐RUN AND LONG‐RUN DETERMINANTS OF THE REAL EXCHANGE RATE IN MEXICO

This paper explores the real exchange rate behavior in Mexico from 1960 until 2005. Since the empirical analysis reveals that the real exchange rate is not mean reverting, we propose that economic fundamental variables affect its evolution in the long run. Therefore, based on equilibrium exchange rate paradigms, we propose a simple model of real exchange rate determination, which includes the relative GDP per capita, the real interest rates, and the net foreign assets over a long period of time. Our analysis also considers the dynamic adjustment in response to shocks through impulse response functions derived from the multivariate vector autoregressive (VAR) model.     

Intraday effects of macroeconomic shocks on the US Dollar–Euro exchange rates

This paper characterizes the intriguing features of high frequency 15-min Dollar–Euro foreign exchange returns data. The FIGARCH model is found to be the preferred specification for the long memory volatility process in the high frequency returns. This paper then examines how macroeconomic shocks affect the high frequency Dollar–Euro returns on an intraday basis. Quantifying the intraday effects of the shocks on the high frequency returns by using a linearly distributed lag dummy variable, this paper finds that the effects on the high frequency returns are generally statistically significant and that they appear to be asymmetric depending on the regions and the signs of the shocks and to be persistent for several lags even within a day. However, the macroeconomic shocks are found not to affect the long memory property in the high frequency returns implying that the linear dummy variable model may not be enough to explain the long memory property.