Monetary Policy Regime Shifts and Uncovered Interest Parity Revisited: The Euro–US Dollar Exchange Rate

ABSTRACT

To explore possible sources of the well-documented uncovered interest parity (UIP) violation in the foreign exchange market, this paper scrutinizes structural changes in monetary reactions to inflationary pressure in the conventional approaches to nominal exchange rate and examines how this small but important change has an effect on the empirical implications of the UIP condition. In addition to some salient features found in the euro exchange rate, by introducing occasional monetary policy regime shifts into an otherwise standard open-economy dynamic general equilibrium model, we found some important findings that potentially help better understand exchange rate dynamics. During the entire sample period, 1999:M1–2014:M8, exchange rate disconnect puzzle still exists. However, sub-sample analysis suggests that relatively passive monetary reaction implying less frequent intervention by monetary authority tends to be more consistent with the UIP relation. Simulation results support the empirical regularities.     

Asymmetric effects of monetary policy shocks on economic performance: empirical evidence from Turkey

This study investigates the asymmetric effects of monetary policy shocks on the macroeconomic variables of exchange rate, output and inflation for an emerging economy ? Turkey ? by using monthly data between 1990 and 2014. We employ the innovative nonlinear vector autoregressive model of Kilian and Vigfusson (2011), which allows us to observe the effect of different stances (tight or loose) and different sizes (small or large) of monetary policy actions. Our empirical evidence reveals that tight monetary policy, which, in this case, is captured with a positive shock to interest rate, decreases exchange rate, output and prices, as economic theory suggests. Loose monetary policy, which is captured with a negative shock to interest rate, has the opposite effect on these variables. However, the effects of loose monetary policy are weaker than the effects of tight monetary policy because loose monetary policy shocks are less effective than tight monetary policy shocks. Moreover, as the magnitude of a shock increases, the difference between the effects of tight and loose monetary policy policies also increases.     

Reverse Causality in Global and Intra‐European Imbalances

The paper discusses global current account imbalances in the context of an asymmetric world monetary system. It identifies the USA and Germany as center countries with rising/high current account deficits (USA) and surpluses (Germany). These are matched by current account surpluses of countries stabilizing their exchange rates against the dollar (dollar periphery) and current account deficits of countries stabilizing their exchange rates against the euro or members of the euro area (euro periphery). The paper finds that changes of world current account positions are closely linked to the monetary policy decision patterns both in the centers and peripheries. Whereas in the centers current account positions are affected by monetary policies, in the peripheries exchange rate stabilization cum sterilization matters. In specific, monetary expansion in the USA as well as exchange rate stabilization and sterilization policies in the dollar periphery are found to have contributed to global imbalances.     

The role of monetary policy credibility in explaining the decline in exchange rate pass-through in South Africa

This paper investigates the key factors that explain the documented decline in the exchange rate pass-through in South Africa over the past two decades. The paper finds that this outcome is largely due to improved monetary policy credibility. The South African Reserve Bank has become more credible since the adoption of the inflation target regime through improved communication, transparency, and independence. We show that credibility is enhanced through a gradual disinflation process and reduction of inflation volatility. As result, expectations of agents have become well-anchored at levels that are consistent with its objectives of keeping inflation within the official target range of 3–6 percent even in the presence of external shocks. This in turn reduces the exchange rate pass-through. This finding is important from a monetary policy perspective not only for South Africa but other emerging economies such as Turkey as it shows that improving monetary policy credibility is a key ingredient to reducing exchange rate pass-through.     

The role of exchange rate in inflation targeting: the case of Turkey

ABSTRACT

The role of the exchange rates in emerging market economies that have adopted inflation targeting (IT) is a critical and contentious issue in the relevant literature. This article investigates whether an exchange rate-augmented Taylor rule describes the Central Bank of Republic of Turkey’s (CBRT) monetary policy. Covering the period from 2002:1 to 2017:8 it also explores possible nonlinearities in the reaction function of the CBRT by employing a Threshold Vector Autoregressive (TVAR) model. The linear estimation of the model highlighted the importance of the exchange rate in monetary policy under IT. The results of the nonlinear model indicate that the stance of monetary policy was asymmetric with respect to exchange rate movements during the conventional IT period. However, the asymmetric monetary policy stance disappeared in the aftermath of the Global Financial Crisis. Increasing considerations of financial stability undermined the asymmetric policy stance of the CBRT in the post-crisis period.     

Price and liquidity puzzles of a monetary shock: Evidence from indebted African economies

Price and liquidity puzzles have been identified as two major counterintuitive findings arising from monetary shocks. We investigate their presence in eleven African countries, using a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model designed for indebted small open-economies. Our simulations reveal that the majority of African countries report a price puzzle whereas only three countries exhibit liquidity effect. In many of the sampled countries, a positive money growth shock drives interest rates up, but consumption and output fall in contrast to the conventional view. External debt increases in response to money growth shock, exchange rate appreciates and inflation falls. Money growth shocks are transmitted to the economy through the exchange rate channel when uncovered interest rate parity condition holds. Our findings therefore appear to suggest that monetary policy in Africa should prioritize foreign debt stabilization by reacting more to output gap than to inflation.     

THE SIZE OF FISCAL MULTIPLIERS AND THE STANCE OF MONETARY POLICY IN DEVELOPING ECONOMIES

Implementing fiscal programs during monetary policy expansions seems to improve significantly their economic stimulus. We find this result by estimating the effect of government consumption shocks on gross domestic product (GDP) using a panel of 23 developing economies. Our goal is to better understand the reasons for the low fiscal multipliers found in the literature by performing estimations for alternative exchange rate regimes, business‐cycle phases, and monetary policy stances. In addition, we perform counterfactual simulations to analyze the possible gains from fiscal‐monetary policy coordination. Our results also show lower multipliers in developing economies with flexible regimes, especially during economic slowdowns. (JEL E62, E63, F32)     

Too small to be independent? On the influence of ECB monetary policy on interest rates of the EEA countries

Monetary policy independence is regarded as the central argument in favour of floating exchange rates and monetary integration. We evaluate the actual independence of non-euro members of the European Economic Area by using heterogeneous panel cointegration methods that allow cross-dependency. We show that domestic interest rates follow the euro interest rates. These spillovers imply a low monetary independence despite the insulation given by floating exchange rate regimes and inflation-targeting frameworks. We therefore find significant spillover effects of the European Central Bank policy and argue that the costs of monetary integration in Europe may be lower than expected.     

South Africa’s monetary policy independence: evidence from a Global New-Keynesian DSGE model

We study the response of South African monetary policy decisions to foreign monetary policy shocks. We estimate the extent of foreign monetary policy pass through by augmenting standard Taylor rules and comparing the results within the context of a Global New-Keynesian Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium (DSGE) model. The general equilibrium model captures important spill-over effects that would otherwise have been ignored in a single equation set-up. The results show that the relationship between foreign monetary policy shocks and South African interest rates is complicated – South Africa does not import foreign monetary policy directly, but is still affected. Except for the US, an increase in foreign interest rates leads to a decrease in South African interest rates – highlighting the complex channels that the monetary policy authority has to monitor outside of its economy.     

Does Latin America Have More to Gain From Exchange Rate Liberalization than Sub-Saharan Africa?

An examination of the relationship between exchange rate liberalization and economic growth in selected Latin American and Sub-Saharan African countries reveals evidence of a short-run causal relationship between the two variables in both Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa. Within each region, exchange rate liberalization causes growth in some countries while others exhibit reverse causality running from growth to exchange rate leads to increased growth and growth induces exchange rate liberalization in most Latin American countries, in the majority of Sub-Saharan African countries studied, exchange rate liberalization reduces growth while growth causes distortions in the exchange rate. Market imperfections, expansionary fiscal and monetary policies under a fixed exchange rate regime, and poor terms of trade are cited as possible explanations for the findings for Sub-Saharan Africa. [F, O]     

Uncovering the link between a flexible exchange rate and fundamentals: the case of Central and Eastern European economies

This article examines the link between a nominal exchange rate and macrofundamentals in Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries. We use the model based on the monetary policy rule as a theoretical framework that explains the relations between the exchange rate and price level, risk premium, output gap, and expected inflation. It allows for endogeneity of the monetary policy – the issue ignored in the widely used monetary model. The sample covers the period January 2000 – December 2014, so the data are not plagued by high-inflation differentials characteristic for the early transition period and include countries with relatively flexible exchange rates. Our empirical strategy employs the panel error correction model that allows for cross-sectional dependence and a series of panel causality tests. The main finding is that the nominal exchange rates in CEE countries are not disconnected from macrofundamentals implied by the Taylor rule-based model. More specifically, we find that there is a strong cross-sectional dependence among CEE countries, exchange rates Granger-cause macrofundamentals and tend to revert to the long-run relation, and that the results are robust to the ‘extraordinary circumstances’ argument, i.e. do not rest on the dynamics during the global financial crisis.     

An explanation for the price puzzle: Asymmetric information and expectation dynamics

Using theoretical and empirical analyses, this paper shows that the expectation dynamics induced by information asymmetry between the Central Bank (CB) and the public can cause the price puzzle. The signalling and learning dynamics between the CB and a representative private-sector agent under asymmetric information is investigated. Inflation positively reacts to contractionary monetary policy because the change in the interest rate is perceived as a signal of the CB’s private information about higher future inflation and output by the public. The empirical section of the paper validates this theoretical argument using a VAR specification about the US economy. Besides providing an explanation for the price puzzle, the results of this paper has practical implications about transparency and monetary policy. The theoretical and empirical findings indicate that asymmetric information causes significant frictions in the transmission mechanism of monetary policy. These frictions induce short-run undesired effects like increase in expected inflation and actual inflation as a response to contractionary monetary policy which is identified as “the price puzzle”.     

Inflation in Open Economies with Complete Markets

This paper uses an overlapping generations model to analyze monetary policy in a two-country model with asymmetric shocks. Agents insure against risk through the exchange of a complete set of real securities. Each central bank is able to commit to the contingent monetary policy rule that maximizes domestic welfare. In an attempt to improve their country’s terms of trade of securities, central banks choose to commit to costly inflation in favorable states of nature. In equilibrium the effects on the terms of trade wash out, leaving both countries worse off. Countries facing asymmetric shocks may therefore gain from monetary cooperation.     

欧元体系财政与货币政策协调性分析

欧元区集中统一的货币政策和权力分散的财政政策 ,已有 4年多的实践历程 ,实践表明财政与货币政策协调性较差 ,欧盟的机构设置与政策结构的设计的确存在缺陷 ,采取扩张性货币政策缓解内部冲击与价格稳定首要目标已处于两难境地。实现统一的“大财政”,通过财政转移 ,重新配置资源 ,以帮助成员国吸收不对称冲击的影响 ,是提高欧元体系财政与货币政策协调性措施之一。     

Monetary policy and exchange market pressure–evidence from sub-Saharan Africa

The purpose of this study was to assess the impact of monetary policy on foreign exchange market pressure (EMP) in developing country contexts for some selected countries in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) and to measure the ability of monetary policy to significantly address currency pressures that arise from trading on the global market. This study was motivated by the fact that most of the SSA countries are developing economies that have negative net export positions and stand to lose significantly from consistently deteriorating foreign exchange position. The study, therefore, employs a dynamic panel model to test the hypothesis that a tighter monetary policy stance lends strength to a currency and vice versa, using 20 SSA economies for the period from 1991 to 2010. This study finds a negative and significant relationship between monetary policy and EMP, implying an easing of EMP in the face of contractionary monetary policy. The findings also point to significant relations between aggregate output, levels of public debt, the current account balance, terms of trade and EMP. Findings of this study have important implications as regards the policy direction on exchange rate and currency management.     

Real exchange rate dynamics: Relative importance of Taylor‐rule fundamentals,monetary policy shocks,and risk‐premium shocks

We first show that the solution to the real exchange rate under the Taylor rule with interest rate smoothing can have two alternative representations—one based on a first‐order difference equation and the other based on a second‐order difference equation. Then, by comparing error terms from these two alternative representations and analyzing their second moments, we evaluate the relative importance of Taylor‐rule fundamentals, monetary policy shocks, and risk‐premium shocks in the dynamics of the real exchange rate. Empirical results suggest that the risk‐premium shock is the largest contributor to real exchange rate movements for all the countries examined, with the Taylor‐rule fundamentals and monetary policy shocks playing a limited role. These results are robust to various alternative sets of parameter values considered for the Taylor rule with interest rate smoothing.     

The role of the exchange rate in Canadian monetary policy: evidence from a TVP-BVAR model

A time-varying parameters Bayesian structural vector autoregression (TVP-BVAR) model with stochastic volatility is employed to characterize the monetary policy stance of the Bank of Canada (BoC) in terms of an interest rate rule linking the policy rate to the output gap, inflation and the exchange rate. Using quarterly bilateral Canadian–US data, we find such an interest rate rule to have little explanatory power for the early part of our sample starting in the mid-1980s, but to become more suitable to explain interest rate dynamics from the mid-1990s onwards. Whereas the exchange rate turns out to be the major determinant of the policy rate in the 1980s, its importance declines throughout the 1990s and 2000s, although it continues to be influential even towards the end of the sample period ending in 2015Q2. We also find interest rate shocks to have become more effective in influencing the macroeconomy over time, indicating that the BoC has continually gained monetary policy credibility. We associate this development with the BoC successively de-emphasizing the role of the exchange rate in informing interest rate decisions, thereby alleviating the potential monetary policy conflict between targeting the exchange rate and maintaining the price stability goal.     

Asymmetric responses of money demand to oil price shocks in Saudi Arabia: a non-linear ARDL approach

Saudi Arabia is an open oil-based economy with fixed exchange rates; therefore, it has limited monetary policy autonomy. Using non-linear autoregressive distributed lag approach, this article investigates the asymmetric effects of oil price shocks on the demand of money in Saudi Arabia over the period 1990:Q1–2014:Q4. The empirical results show evidence of positive long run but asymmetric effects of oil price shocks on the money demand. In particular, we find that the positive oil price shocks are more important than negative shocks. Therefore, two policy responses can be considered: either sustaining the fixed exchange rate regime and following an economic diversification policy or switching towards a flexible exchange rate regime to achieve price stability. In that case, the existence of a stable money demand function in Saudi Arabia is a necessary precondition for adopting a monetary policy strategy targeted to price stability using instruments like money targeting.     

基于资产价格影响的货币政策非对称性效应研究

利用NK-SVAR模型就我国货币政策的非对称性效应进行研究,结果表明,紧缩性货币政策的效果比较明显,而扩张性货币政策效果较弱.货币冲击的紧缩效应强于扩张效应,这表明抑制经济的过快增长时紧缩性的货币政策效果显著,但扩张性货币政策无法摆脱经济的恶性衰退.     

Monetary policy synchronization in the ASEAN-5 region: an exchange rate perspective

In light of the long-standing vision of economic and monetary integration in the ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) region and the importance of coordinating monetary policies to achieve it, the objective of this article is to assess the monetary policy synchronization among the founding members of the ASEAN, that is, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand. Due to the importance of exchange rate movements to monetary policies, we approach this issue from a currency exchange rate perspective. Specifically, multivariate trend–cycle decomposition is employed to investigate common trends and common cycles among the exchange rates of these countries during the period 1976–2012. Our analysis reveals that the real exchange rates of Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand share common cycles in the short term and have common trends in the long term, but the Indonesian currency does not share these relationships. Thus, our results augur well for the synchronization of monetary policies among Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand. In contrast, the relatively turbulent dynamics of the Indonesian rupiah evident in frequent bouts of stark depreciation separated by periods of steady depreciation over the past three decades raise questions regarding the readiness of Indonesia for participating in a monetary alliance with the ASEAN-4 nations.