On the Transmission Mechanism of Monetary Constraints to the Real Side of the Economy

Contrary to the predictions of the theory underlying international finance, inflows of capital triggered by financial liberalisation have neither equalised real interest rates nor increased income growth in many emerging economies. We explain this puzzle by developing a model that combines the balance‐of‐payments constraint approach to economic growth with a less stringent version of the real interest rate parity hypothesis. The model’s foundations are based on robust empirical findings or well‐established macroeconomic models. We show that a perverse combination of income elasticities of demand for imports and exports generates slow income growth and high real interest rates. As domestic income grows and imports rise faster than exports, the real exchange rate is expected to depreciate in order to clear the balance of payments (or the foreign exchange rate market). An incipient capital outflow arises and interest rates increase. Faster adjustment in capital rather than in the goods market therefore generates a higher real interest rate differential between the domestic small open‐economy and the rest of the world. The long run analysis shows that a constant degree of risk aversion implies a positive equilibrium real interest rate differential that affects economic growth. A permanent increase in default risk driven by persistent current account imbalances thus impacts on long run growth. The model’s results are illustrated with evidence from the three major Latin America economies: Argentina, Brazil and Mexico.     

Foreign Direct Investment in Australia Following the Australia–US Free Trade Agreement

A model of inward foreign direct investment for Australia is estimated. Foreign direct investment is found to be positively related to economic and productivity growth and negatively related to foreign portfolio investment, trade openness, the exchange rate and the foreign real interest rate. Foreign direct investment is found to be a substitute for both portfolio investment and trade in goods and services. The exchange rate and the US bond rate affect foreign direct investment through the relative attractiveness of domestic assets. Actual foreign direct investment outperforms a model‐derived forecast in recent years, consistent with the liberalisation of foreign investment screening rules following the Australia–US Free Trade Agreement.     

The Foreign Exchange Constraints to Economic Adjustment: The case of Iran

While a great deal of work has been devoted to the assessment of the effects of structural adjustment programmes, little is known about the relative importance of external financing and its contribution to the success of these adjustment programmes. This paper examines this question, using Iran's recent experience with an orthodox structural adjustment with its limited access to medium- and long-term external financing. Using the annual data for 1963-94, a three-gap model of growth is formulated and estimated in which economic growth is constrained by domestic saving, foreign exchange and public sector resource availability. The resulting foreign exchange-gap equation demonstrates a sharp trade-off between investment (capacity generation) and the capacity utilization rate. The model is simulated over the period 1995-99 under three growth path scenarios. The size of the foreign exchange gap under these growth path scenarios illustrates quite vividly the centrality of the foreign exchange constraint to the achievement of a modest growth rate in the medium-term.     

Assessing the Impacts of Capital Inflows on Domestic Economy across the Sub-Saharan Africa Countries

Using GMM models, this paper analyzes the impacts of capital inflows on domestic investment in 44 Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) countries from 2003–2012. It is found that foreign direct investment across the SSA remains to be the largest percentage share, accounting for 35% of the total capital inflows. FDI inflows have significant positive impacts on domestic investment across the SSA in both short term and long term. Other key macroeconomic factors such as age dependency ratio, domestic economic growth, terms of trade, real effective exchange rate and trade openness also play vital roles in determining domestic investment.     

中国外汇储备增长的因素分析与对策探讨

中国外汇储备已突破2万亿美元大关,人民币汇率的低估被认为是外汇储备快速增长的主要原因。通过实证分析发现,中国外汇储备的增长受到贸易条件、相对技术进步和外商直接的投资等因素变量的影响,人民币实际汇率对外汇储备增长的影响并不显著,通过人民币实际汇率大幅升值来调整外汇储备增长的做法是不可取的。当前应该采取措施促进非贸易部门的技术进步,适当增加进口,优化外资引进政策以减缓外汇储备的快速增长。     

Workers’ remittances and the Dutch disease in South Asian countries

Workers’ remittances have become an important source of foreign exchange for some emerging economies even when compared to official development assistance, foreign direct investment or other types of capital flows. While some research suggests that a high inflow of remittances lowers poverty and stimulates economic growth and financial development, other studies suggest that remittances can appreciate the real exchange rate and thereby hurt the competitiveness of the tradeable sector. In this article, we examine the Dutch disease argument for Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka using a fixed effects model. We are unable to reject the null that there is a statistically significant appreciating effect of remittances on real exchange rate. Since our estimation results show that trade openness causes a depreciation of the real exchange rate, the appreciation effect of the real exchange rate originating from remittance inflows can be made weaker by trade liberalization.     

Investment and the real exchange rate’s profitability channel in Mexico

The paper estimates different versions of an equation for private investment in Mexico during the post-liberalization period 1988–2013, with the aim of studying the operation of the recently discussed real exchange rate’s profitability channel. During this period, the real exchange rate (RER) was broadly positively correlated with the Mexican price/wage ratio and the Mexican/US relative profit margin in the manufacturing sector, particularly so when the RER experienced large fluctuations, before the end of disinflation in the early 2000s. In the estimations, the effect of the profit margin appears to be ‘deeper’, wiping out the effect of the RER when the two variables are included together in the investment equation. From this, the paper argues that the positive effect of the RER on investment, observed in previous studies that omitted the profit margin, reflects indirectly the positive link of the RER with the profit margin, supporting the existence of a profitability channel in Mexico.     

External wealth, the trade balance, and the real exchange rate

We examine the link between the net foreign asset position, the trade balance and the real exchange rate. In particular, we decompose the impact of a country's net foreign asset position (‘external wealth’) on its long-run real exchange rate into two mechanisms: the relation between external wealth and the trade balance; and, holding fixed other determinants, a negative relation between the trade balance and the real exchange rate. We also provide additional evidence that the relative price of nontradables is an important channel linking the trade balance and the real exchange rate.     

人民币汇率与外商直接投资关系研究——基于上海市的数据

运用Johansen协整检验、Granger因果检验、脉冲响应分析等实证方法研究上海市外商直接投资与人民币实际有效汇率及其波动之间的相关性,研究表明:上海市外商直接投资(FDI)与实际有效汇率(REER)、地区国内生产总值(GDP)和对外依存度(OPEN)显著正相关,与汇率波动(VOL)和平均工资(WAGE)显著负相关;短期内人民币实际有效汇率及其波动对上海市外商直接投资存在影响,且汇率的波动比其实际值的大小更能影响外商直接投资;实际有效汇率及其波动的冲击在零期对外商直接投资均没有影响,响应值在第四期达到最大,实际有效汇率对于外商直接投资的影响主要体现在投资时机的选择上。     

实际外部财富、劳动生产率与人民币实际汇率——基于跨期一般均衡理论的实证研究

本文首先构建关于实际外部财富、劳动生产率、贸易条件与实际汇率关系的跨时一般均衡理论模型,然后利用1981-2009年相关时间序列数据,检验中国实际外部财富、贸易条件以及国内外两部门劳动生产率对人民币实际汇率的影响。结果表明,从长期看,中国实际外部财富的急剧攀升会引发人民币实际汇率快速升值;中国贸易部门相对非贸易部门劳动生产率上升会促使人民币实际汇率升值,而国外贸易部门相对非贸易部门的劳动生产率提高则会降低人民币实际汇率,净效应表现为劳动生产率并不能解释20世纪80年代以来人民币实际汇率的长期波动;中国贸易条件对人民币实际汇率的影响不明显。短期内,中国实际外部财富对人民币实际汇率的作用关系与长期一致。根据上述结论,本文提出了保持人民币实际汇率相对稳定的政策建议。     

The J‐Curve: Evidence from Fiji*

This article provides new evidence on both long run and short‐run determinants of trade balance for Fiji and investigates evidence of J‐curve adjustment behaviour in the aftermath of a devaluation. We adopt a partial reduced form model that models the real trade balance directly as a function of the real exchange rate and real domestic and foreign incomes. Cointegration analysis is based on a recently developed autoregressive distributed lag approach—shown to provide robust results in finite samples. The long run elasticities are also estimated using a dynamic ordinary least squares approach and the Fully Modified Ordinary Least Squares (FM‐OLS) approach. Amongst our key results we find that there is a long‐run relationship between trade balance and its determinants. There is evidence of the J‐curve pattern; growth in domestic income affects Fiji’s trade balance adversely while foreign income improves it.     

Exchange market pressure and primary commodity – exporting emerging markets

This paper studies short-term sensitivity between exchange market pressure and various domestic and external factors in primary commodity-exporting emerging markets. The paper focuses on the top country-commodity groups in sugar, cereal, fuels, ores and coffee during the pre-peak and post-peak commodity price periods across floating and pegged exchange rate regimes, using the price of crude oil as a general benchmark. Employing a panel model and panel VAR analysis, the paper finds the heterogeneity of response patterns unique to country-commodity groups and exchange rate regimes. According to the results, in flexible regimes, volatility occurs via the foreign exchange market, interest rates, and domestic credit cycles, feeding into the social costs for structurally weaker economies. Hard exchange-rate pegs often result in a drain on international reserves as the terms of trade deteriorate following post-price peaks, leading to unpopular depreciation. These results accentuate concerns over uneven international trade patterns, an open economy’s short-term foreign exchange policy, and speculative capital flows. Such sensitivity has broad implications for macroeconomic balance and the sustainability of implied exchange rate targets in the presence of a foreign exchange constraint across emerging markets.     

Growth,Distribution, and External Constraints: A Post-Kaleckian Model Applied to Brazil

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this research is to analyze whether the Brazilian economy behaved under a wage-led or profit-led regime between 1960 and 2011, considering a Post-Kaleckian model in a context of external constraints. The time span is limited by data availability (i.e., 2011). To answer the question of whether the Brazilian economy works under a wage-led or profit-led regime, we propose a simple Post-Kaleckian model. The model suggests that a profit-led regime is more probable for Brazil. Moreover, a wage-led regime occurs when a balance of payments constrained growth model is taken into consideration. Likewise, the real exchange rate has a positive impact on economic growth through the export channel. This result is a novelty in the recent literature about the relationship between real exchange rate and economic growth within a Post-Kaleckian model. The Brazilian economy was chosen as it is one of the biggest economies in Latin America.     

Modelling real exchange rate effects on output performance in Latin America

This article empirically analyses real per capita GDP growth for six Latin American countries (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Columbia, Mexico, Venezuela) in terms of real exchange rate depreciations, inflation and US interest rates, focussing on the role of the real exchange rate. We find evidence of nonlinearity in this relationship, which we capture through a smooth transition regression model. With the exception of Mexico, nonlinearity in economic growth is associated with changes in the real exchange rate, with depreciations leading to different relationships compared with appreciations. Regimes for Mexico are associated with the past growth rates, with effectively symmetric effects of real exchange rate changes. Although our results are in accord with other recent literature in that depreciations may have negative effects for growth, the asymmetries we uncover indicate that these effects depend on the conditioning state.     

The real exchange rate and economic development

Recent empirical studies have found a robust correlation between competitive exchange rates and economic growth in developing economies. This paper presents (i) a formal model to help explain these findings and (ii) econometric evidence on the relation between investment and the real exchange rate. The model emphasizes the existence of (hidden) unemployment as a source of endogenous growth, even under constant returns to scale. Growth promoting policies, however, affect the external balance, and two instruments are needed in order to achieve targets for both the growth rate and the trade balance. The real exchange rate can serve as one of those instruments. The implications of the model for the relation between real exchange rates and the rate of capital accumulation find support in our econometric analysis.     

Exchange rate and foreign GDP elasticities of Swiss exports across sectors and destination countries

This article uses a detailed breakdown of Swiss trade flows to identify how the impact of the two main determinants of Switzerland’s exports – foreign demand and the real exchange rate – varies across sectors and export destinations. Our main findings are that (i) both foreign demand and exchange rate elasticities vary substantially across both export sectors and export destinations. (ii) Foreign demand trends are more important for structural considerations than the exchange rate. This is due to the fact that exports of the two largest export sectors are relatively sensitive to long-run foreign demand developments while they are relatively insensitive to changes in the exchange rate. (iii) The sectoral structure of Switzerland’s exports has shifted towards goods that have a lower short-run demand elasticity and a higher long-run demand elasticity. Goods exports are thus less influenced by business cycle fluctuations while they benefit more from long-term growth trends. (iv) The export share of sectors with a relatively low exchange rate elasticity has increased. However, this result is mainly driven by the strong rise in exports of chemicals and pharmaceuticals as well as precision instruments and watches, which are also the two important sectors responsible for the Swiss trade surplus.     

Real exchange rates,economic performance,and trade balances in the central european free trade association

The relationships between real exchange rates dynamics, domestic economic growth, and external economic positions are examined for four East European countries: Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic. Results show that in Poland the dynamic of the trade balance is independent of both the real exchange rate and industrial production. In both Hungary and Slovakia, trade balances appear to have strong autonomous components, albeit in circumstances where the influence of real exchange rates and industrial production dynamics cannot be entirely denied. The Czech Republic's situation is, however, substantially different from its Central European Free Trade Assocation partners. The growing trade balance deficit appears to be determined by both the continuing real appreciation of the Czech currency and a mildly accelerating industrial production growth. Both are the consequence of accelerating capital inflow.     

(Asymmetric) trade costs,real exchange rate hedging,and equity home bias in a multicountry model

There has been controversy between (two‐country) theory and the empirics about whether hedging against real exchange rate fluctuations in the goods market influences foreign equity holdings. This study reconciles the theory with the empirics by introducing a multicountry framework with asymmetric trade costs. We find that the incentive to hold foreign equities to hedge real exchange rate risk is negligible because multiple trade partners act as a hedging channel for real exchange rate fluctuations. Further, our theory calls for a country's covariance–variance ratio to be constructed as the sum of the bilateral covariance–variance ratios of the multiple partners. The empirical analysis of 24 advanced countries confirms the theoretical prediction.     

对外开放与中国经济增长关系的实证研究

Based on an adjusted Solow economic growth model, using econometric tools such as cointegration test and Granger causality test, taking the economic factors such as foreign trade and foreign investment into account, this paper makes regression analysis on the effect of economic opening on China’s economic growth by using the data from 1985 to 2004. The analysis indicates that the domestic capital input is still the primary element that promotes China’s economic growth, by contrast, the effect of foreign trade and foreign investment is faint. It is a bidirectional causality between foreign trade and economic growth, and the adjusting velocity of trade is larger than the foreign direct investment on the balance of the China’s long-time economic growth.      

Limited asset market participation and the consumption‐real exchange rate anomaly

Abstract Under efficient consumption risk sharing, as assumed in standard international business cycle models, a country's aggregate consumption rises relative to foreign consumption, when the country's real exchange rate depreciates. Yet empirically, relative consumption and the real exchange rate are essentially uncorrelated. This paper shows that this ‘consumption‐real exchange rate anomaly’ can be explained by a simple model in which a subset of households trade in complete financial markets, while the remaining households lead hand‐to‐mouth (HTM) lives. HTM behaviour also generates greater volatility of the real exchange rate and of net exports, which likewise brings the model closer to the data.