US vs. euro area: Who drives cross-border bank lending to EMs?

This paper analyzes the drivers of cross-border bank lending to 49 Emerging Markets (EMs) during the period 1990Q1–2014Q4, by assessing the impact of monetary, financial and real sector shocks in both the US and the euro area. The literature has traditionally highlighted the influence of US monetary policy on driving cross-border bank flows, and more recently the importance of both US and Euro Area (EA) financial/banking sectors’ related variables. Our contribution is the simultaneous analysis of the role of these US and EA drivers, as well as their interactions with real sector shocks. We corroborate the negative impact of US monetary policy tightening on cross-border lending to EMs, but we find that EA monetary policy seems to have an impact mostly on Emerging Europe, reflecting the fact that cross-border lending to most other EM regions is dollar denominated. We also find that real sector shocks in both the US and EA trigger an increase in cross-border lending, but less in EA when modeling the financial sector. Finally, for financial sector shocks, such as those associated with a decrease in bank leverage, our results indicate a broad-based overall contraction of cross-border lending if the shock originates in the US, and heterogenous effects across borrowing regions if the shock originates in the EA.     

Monetary unions, external shocks and economic performance: A Latin American perspective

During the last few years there has been a renewed analysis in currency unions as a form of monetary arrangement. This new interest has been largely triggered by the Euro experience. Scholars and policy makers have asked about the optimal number of currencies in the world economy. They have analyzed whether different countries satisfy the traditional “optimal currency area” criteria. These include, among other: (a) the synchronization of the business cycle; (b) the degree of factor mobility; and (c) the extent of trade and financial integration. In this paper I analyze the desirability of a monetary union from a Latin American perspective. First, I review the existing literature on the subject. Second, I use a large data set to analyze the evidence on economic performance in currency union countries. I investigate these countries’ performance on four dimensions: (a) whether countries without a national currency have a lower occurrence of “sudden stop” episodes; (b) whether they have a lower occurrence of “current account reversal” episodes; (c) what is their ability to absorb international terms of trade shocks; and (d) what is their ability to absorb “sudden stops” and “current account reversals” shocks. I find that belonging to a currency union has not lower the probability of facing a sudden stop or a current account reversal. I also find that external shocks have been amplified in currency union countries. The degree of amplification is particularly large when compared to flexible exchange rate countries.     

Is the proposed East African Monetary Union an optimal currency area? a structural vector autoregression analysis

This paper empirically assesses the suitability of the East African (EA) countries for a regional monetary union by testing for symmetry of the underlying structural shocks. The results indicate that supply and demand shocks are generally asymmetric, which does not lend strong support for forming a currency union in the EA region at the moment. However, the speed and magnitude of adjustment to shocks is similar across the countries. Therefore, further integration of the economies might lead to more favorable conditions for a monetary union. Although evidence in favor of linking an EA currency to an external anchor is weak, such support seems to favor the Euro.     

Monetary policy in the euro area: Was it too tight in the 1990s?

This paper studies the monetary policy in the euro area. An important question concerning the euro area is whether the monetary policy has been too tight in the 1990s and in turn, caused the high unemployment rates, in contrast to the economic prosperity and low unemployment rate of the U.S. Therefore, the authors explore what would have happened to the euro economy if the Central Banks had followed either the fixed or time-varying monetary policy rule of the U.S. The paper does find that the European central banks and then later the ECB overreacted to past inflation pressures.     

A Comparative Analysis of Export Price Pass-through in Three Open Asian Economies: Korea,Singapore and Thailand

Abstract

The degree of exchange rate pass-through is of paramount importance to small and open economies as it has a direct impact on domestic inflation as well as the effectiveness of exchange rate as an adjustment tool. High exchange rate pass-through (ERPT) is often cited as a reason for a “fear of floating”. This article analyzes the degree of ERPT into the export prices of three Asian economies—Korea, Thailand and Singapore for the period 1980: Q1–2006: Q4 using both US dollar bilateral rates as well as nominal effective exchange rates. The study also examines whether there are asymmetries in ERPT between exchange rate appreciation and depreciation.     

Slow Pass-through Around the World: A New Import for Developing Countries?

Developing countries traditionally experience pass-through of exchange rate changes that is greater and more rapid than high-income countries experience. This is true equally of the determination of prices of imported goods, prices of local competitors’ products, and the general CPI. But developing countries in the 1990s experienced a rapid downward trend in the degree of pass-through and speed of adjustment, more so than did high-income countries. As a consequence, slow and incomplete pass-through is no longer exclusively a luxury of industrial countries. Using a new data set—prices of eight narrowly defined brand commodities, observed in 76 countries—we find empirical support for some of the factors that have been hypothesized in the literature, but not for others. Significant determinants of the pass-through coefficient include per capita incomes, bilateral distance, tariffs, country size, wages, long-term inflation, and long-term exchange rate variability. Some of these factors changed during the 1990s. Part (and only part) of the downward trend in pass-through to imported goods prices, and in turn to competitors’ prices and the CPI, can be explained by changes in the monetary environment—including a fall in long-term inflation. Real wages work to reduce pass-through to competitors’ prices and the CPI, confirming the hypothesized role of distribution and retail costs in pricing to market. Rising distribution costs, due perhaps to the Balassa-Samuelson-Baumol effect, could contribute to the decline in the pass-through coefficient in some developing countries.     

Exchange rates,price levels,and inflation targeting: Evidence from Asian countries

This study examines how the adoption of inflation-targeting influenced exchange rate pass-through and volatility in four Asian countries –Indonesia, South Korea, the Philippines, and Thailand – over the sample period of January 1990 to June 2007. We find that adopting inflation targeting helped reduce pass-through in South Korea, and Thailand, while the results are less clear for Indonesia and the Philippines. Nevertheless, the findings indicate that inflation targeting caused a decline in exchange rate volatility in all four countries. The important lesson from the experiences of these Asian countries is that the adoption of inflation targeting contributes to achieving the ultimate goal of inflation stability through reducing exchange rate pass-through or variability.     

Exchange rate pass-through in Korea and Thailand: Trends and determinants

An important but age-old transmission channel of global factors into domestic prices is via exchange rate movements. This paper examines the extent and evolution of exchange rate pass-through (ERPT) into Korea's and Thailand's consumer and import prices at the aggregate level for the period over the last two decades. We find that ERPT appears to be consistently higher for Thailand compared to Korea; while for both nations ERPT of their respective bilateral rates with respect to the US dollar is higher than with respect to the Japanese yen. The paper also investigates if and how ERPT has changed over time, especially during and after the currency crisis period of 1997–1998, as well as its macroeconomic determinants.     

The Yield Curve as a Predictor and Emerging Economies

This paper tests whether the slope of the yield curve in emerging economies predicts inflation and growth. It also investigates whether the USA and euro area curves help to predict. It finds that the yield curve in emerging economies contains information for future inflation and growth, with differences across countries being seemingly linked to market liquidity. The US and euro area yield curves are also found to contain information for future inflation and growth in emerging economies. In particular, for those economies with exchange rates pegged to the US dollar, the US yield curve is often a better predictor than the domestic curves and causes their movements. This suggests that monetary policy changes in the USA are drivers of international financial linkages through base interest pass-through and the low end of the yield curve.     

Is 2?% the optimal inflation rate for the Euro Area?

According to the relevant literature, monetary policy implications concerning the optimal inflation rate can be derived by examining the relationship between inflation and the Relative Price Variability (RPV). This paper studies this issue for selected Euro Area (EA) countries, using monthly data for the Harmonized Index of Consumer Prices. In particular, semi-parametric estimations are employed so as to find the accurate form of the inflation-RPV relationship. The results indicate that this relationship exhibits a U-shape functional profile. Furthermore, the optimal inflation rates for the EA, France, Germany and Spain are also calculated. For all countries and the EA, we find that although the European Central Bank’s “below but close to 2?%” inflation target is optimal for the EA average, it is not the optimum inflation rate for the individual counties.     

The Size of the Rental Market and Housing Market Fluctuations

The paper investigates whether the size of the rental market affects house prices fluctuations or the volatility of construction sector activity over the business cycle. For that purpose we construct a database of variables describing the housing sector in a group of twelve initial euro area members and ten other OECD countries over the years 1995–2014 and conduct a series of panel regressions. We find that a developed rental market attenuates fluctuations in the housing sector, especially for the common currency area sample. We claim that differences among monetary union countries in terms of rental market developments can be destabilizing as they might lead to heterogeneous response to common shocks.     

Europe’s hard fix: the Euro area

One of the most important economic policy issues is the selection of exchange rate regime. The possible choices range from the hard peg to a freely floating nominal exchange rate. Since the early 1990s a move towards the two corners of the exchange rate regime spectrum has been observed, especially in Europe with the creation of EMU. The move towards the corners is discussed from the perspective of Mundell’s “impossible trinity” which states that among the three desirable objectives (1) stabilisation of the exchange rate, (2) free international capital mobility, and (3) an effective monetary policy oriented towards domestic goals, only two can be mutually consistent. Issues related to economic integration and EMU are reviewed, focusing on the famous question: Does one size fit all? Since monetary union raises some interesting issues of political nature, not present in other exchange rate arrangements, the paper ends with a discussion about some political aspects of monetary union.     

Fiscal policy in monetary unions: Implications for Europe

This paper analyzes how the feasible mix of government expenditure and financing arrangements may change with the establishment of a monetary union such as that planned by members of the European Community. We find that a monetary union reduces the feasible divergence across countries in their present discounted levels of fiscal spending. Wide differences across countries in their present and future time patterns of spending are still possible, however. Examination of the empirical evidence suggests that the movement toward greater exchange rate fixity associated with the EMS and participation in quasi monetary unions havenot been accompanied by significant fiscal convergence. The experience of member states of several existing monetary unions, however, suggests that a more effective constraint to budgetary discipline arises within full-fledged unions in operation over long periods, even in the absence of binding central rules on government deficit and debt positions.     

A regime-switching analysis of pass-through

We empirically investigate how various economic factors affect the changes in the pricing policies of exporters, in particular changes in the exchange rate pass-through. Assuming exporters set prices following either a high or a low pass-through pricing policy, and assuming that the transition probabilities between these pricing policies depend on market concentration, exporting country??s market share and monetary stability, we estimate a Markov regime-switching model, using data we have collected on imported cars to the United States. Our findings show that the ??low pass-through?? regime is characterized by: lower exchange rate pass-through, low response to misalignments in the firm??s relative price, low volatility of exogenous shocks, and higher duration. When we decompose the changes in the pass-through in our sample, we find that monetary stability has been the most important factor behind the decline in the pass-through. Monetary stability explains more than 50% of the decline in the exchange rate pass-through, while country market share and market concentration explain about 25 and 10%, respectively.     

Evaluating participation in African monetary unions: A statistical analysis of the CFA Zones

Thirteen African nations are engaged in two monetary unions with France, often referred to as the CFA Zone. Despite the acknowledged benefits of Zone membership — a convertible currency, pooled resources and greater monetary and fiscal “discipline” — several observers have questioned whether particular aspects of the Zone such as the lack of autonomy of the two Central Banks and the surrender of the exchange rate as a policy instrument have impeded its members' growth. This paper addresses that question by testing whether CFA Zone countries had different GNP growth rates from selected “comparator” countries during 1960–1982. Results show that CFA countries grew significantly faster than comparator Sub-Saharan African countries but usually slower, and often significantly so, than the whole sample of developing countries. When the comparison is made by subperiod (before and after 1973), CFA countries' performance vis-à-vis that of their comparators improved during the 1973–1982 period, casting further doubt on the claim that the monetary union is not functioning adequately.     

Exchange Rate Pass-through,Unemployment and Optimal Implementable Monetary Policy Rule for Emerging Economies

Abstract

This paper develops a small open economy model with nominal rigidities and search-matching frictions to study the implications of exchange rate pass-through for monetary policy in emerging countries. I find that, with complete exchange rate pass-through, the optimal policy rule features unemployment targeting as well as inflation targeting. However, the welfare gain from responding to unemployment fluctuations diminishes as the rate of exchange rate pass-through to import prices decreases. With low exchange rate pass-through, the optimal monetary policy is strict inflation targeting.     

Exchange Rate Pass-through in China

During the second half of 2007 and early part of 2008 when there were intense inflationary pressures in China, RMB appreciation was advocated as a means of helping to curb inflation. The effectiveness of appreciation in controlling inflation depends on the impact of exchange rate movements on import and domestic prices. Our analysis finds fairly large and speedy exchange rate pass-through （ERPT） to import prices： 50 and 60percent for the short run and long run, respectively. However, the degree of ERPT decreases along the price chain from upstream to downstream prices. ERPT for consumer prices, the most downstream prices, is much milder and has substantial lags. A 10-percent rise in the nominal effective exchange rate will dampen consumer prices by 1.1 percent within a year, with very little pass-through in the first half year, and by 2.0percent over the long run. These findings, particularly the ERPT to consumer prices, suggest that RMB appreciation can help to reduce inflationary pressures over the longer term. However, it is unlikely to provide rapid relief to the current round of high inflation because of the long lags in ERPZ. The RMB needs to strengthen in effective terms to exert the desired dampening impact on prices.     

Monetary Unions in Historical Perspective: What Future for the Euro in the International Financial System

This paper discusses the introduction of the euro in the present international monetary context. European Monetary Union is not only an economic concept but also primarily a political one. Based on past experience, two aspects of monetary union seem essential: the nature of the future European Central Bank and the necessity that monetary union is implemented with a fiscal union. The euro's success on world markets, as a dollar substitute, depends on monetary authorities' credibility in targeting low-inflation, and on fiscal authorities' reputation. A central bank that does not respond to a political authority can cause social difficulties, especially if social policies are left in the hands of single countries and fiscal transfers, to support these policies, are not allowed     

The euro—the experience of the past 2 years

The article analyses the experience of the first 2 years of the euro, focusing on the monetary policy of the ECB and explaining why it should be considered a success story. As a starting point, it gives a look at “what is” the euro area and the structure of its economy. It then reviews the institutional setting of the single monetary policy, the monetary policy strategy of the ECB and the monetary policy instruments at the disposal of the Eurosystem. The article then analyses the conduct of monetary policy in the years 1999–2000 and highlights the importance attached by the ECB to the transparency of the decision making process. Finally it is explained why the euro should be seen as a success story.     

Why do Estimates of the EMU Effect on Trade Vary so Much?

Larger data sets, with more countries and a longer span of time, exhibit systematically larger effects of European monetary union on trade. I establish this stylized fact with meta-analysis and confirm it by estimating a plain-vanilla gravity model. I then explain this finding by examining systematic biases in “multilateral resistance to trade” manifest in time-varying country fixed effects; bias grows as the sample is truncated by dropping small poor countries.