Increasing Returns,Financial Capital Mobility and Real Exchange Rate Dynamics*

The late 1990s saw a US IT investment boom, large capital flows into the USA and an appreciation of the US$. At the time, this appeared to be driven by expectations of continued IT‐related knowledge spillover externalities and associated productivity and profit growth. Using a two‐region dynamic general equilibrium model with externalities, we find a once‐off productivity shock leads to capital inflow and a real appreciation only in the short term. In the long term, capital flows stabilise and the real exchange rate depreciates. For a single shock to trigger long‐term growth in capital flows requires unrealistically large externalities.     

Export,Exchange Rate Risk and Hedging: The Duopoly Case

Abstract. This paper studies a Cournot duopoly in international trade with firms exposed to exchange rate risk. A hedging opportunity is introduced by a forward market on which one firm can trade the foreign currency. We investigate two settings: First, we assume that hedging and output decisions are taken simultaneously. It is shown that hedging is exclusively done for risk‐managing reasons as it is not possible to use hedging strategically. Second, the hedging decision is made before the output decisions. We show that hedging is not only used to manage the risk exposure but also as a strategic device.     

Transmission of Nominal Exchange Rate Changes to Export Prices and Trade Flows and Implications for Exchange Rate Policy*

We discuss how the welfare ranking of fixed and flexible exchange rate regimes in a New Open Economy Macroeconomics model depends on the interplay between the degree of exchange rate pass‐through and the elasticity of substitution between home and foreign goods. We identify combinations of these two parameters for which flexible and fixed exchange rates are superior with respect to welfare as measured by a representative household's utility level. We estimate the two parameters for six non‐EMU European countries (Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, Sweden, and the UK) using a heterogeneous dynamic panel approach.     

Factors Determining the Exchange Rate Movement under a Partial Capital Mobility Regime

The study examines the rupee–US dollar exchange rate (Rs/$) behaviour in the presence of increasing and ample capital inflows in the post-reform period in India. Using monthly data (1994:4 to 2007:8) the study estimates a basic exchange rate model in a time series framework in order to assess the relative significance of capital inflows in the presence of interest rate, inflation rate and growth rate differentials and other factors (forward exchange rate/expected exchange rate) in influencing the rupee–dollar exchange rate behaviour. It finds the dominance of foreign institutional investments affecting the rupee–dollar exchange rate and, to a certain extent, it is seen that the influence of the growth rate differential affects the exchange rate behaviour in India.