Exchange rate volatility and export growth in Nigeria

This article examines the impact of exchange rate volatility on Nigeria's exports to its most important trading-partner–the United States over the quarterly period January 1980 to April 2001. Using cointegration and vector error correction (VECM) framework, empirical tests indicate the presence of a unique cointegrating vector linking real exports, real foreign income, relative export prices and real exchange rate volatility in the long run. Furthermore, the results show that increases in the volatility of the real exchange rate raise uncertainty about profits to be made which exert significant negative effects on exports both in the short- and long-run. Our results also show that improvements in the terms of trade (represented by declines in the real exchange rate) and real foreign income exert positive effects on export activity. Most importantly, we found that the trade liberalization and economic reform policies implemented in the post-1986 structural adjustment period contributed to Nigeria's export performance. Overall, our findings suggest that Nigeria's exporting activities can be further boosted by policies aimed at achieving and maintaining a stable competitive real exchange rate.     

Exchange rate uncertainty and play nonlinearity in aggregate employment

In a microeconomic model, a band of inaction due to hiring and firing costs is widened by option-value effects of exchange rate uncertainty. Applying an adequate aggregation approach, uncertainty leads to intervals of a weak response to exchange rate reversals—the so-called play areas—on the macro level. If changes go beyond the play area, then suddenly strong reactions (spurts) occur. The width of the play is a positive function of the degree of uncertainty. These nonlinear dynamics are captured in a simplified linearized way in a regression framework. As an empirical application, the exchange rate impacts on German employment are analyzed considering play. Since these mechanisms generally apply to investment cases where an aggregation of microeconomic real option effects under uncertainty is relevant, they may be of a general interest.     

Exchange rate volatility and export performance: a cointegrated VAR approach

During the last decades Norwegian exporters have–despite various forms of exchange rate targeting–faced a rather volatile exchange rate which may have influenced their behaviour. Recently, the shift to inflation targeting and a freely floating exchange rate has brought about an even more volatile exchange rate. We examine the causal link between export performance and exchange rate volatility across different monetary policy regimes within the cointegrated Vector Autoregression (VAR) framework using the implied conditional variance from a Generalized Autoregressive Conditional Heteroskedasticity (GARCH) model as a measure of volatility. Although treating the volatility measure as either a stationary or a nonstationary variable in the VAR, we are not able to find any evidence suggesting that export performance has been significantly affected by exchange rate uncertainty. We find, however, that volatility changes proxied by blip dummies related to the monetary policy change from a fixed to a managed floating exchange rate and the Asian financial crises during the 1990s enter significantly in a dynamic model for export growth–in which the level of relative prices and world market demand together with the level of exports constitute a significant cointegration relationship. A forecasting exercise on the dynamic model rejects the hypothesis that increased exchange rate volatility in the wake of inflation targeting in the monetary policy has had a significant impact on export performance.     

Export surges

How can developing countries stimulate and sustain strong export growth? To answer this question, we examine 92 episodes of export surges, defined as significant increases in manufacturing export growth that are sustained for at least 7 years. We find that export surges in developing countries tend to be preceded by a large real depreciation, which leaves the exchange rate significantly undervalued. In contrast, in developed countries, the role of the exchange rate is less pronounced. We examine why the exchange rate is important in developing countries and find that the depreciation is associated with a significant reallocation of resources in the export sector. In particular, depreciation stimulates entry into new export products and new markets. These new exports are important, accounting for over 40% of export growth on average during the surge in developing countries. We argue that a large real depreciation induces firms to expand the product and market space for exports.     

人民币实际汇率错位对出口贸易影响的实证研究

本文在既有文献的基础上,通过结合我国经济转型的特点,研究了人民币实际汇率错位对出口贸易的影响。文中提出了更加合理的模型,引入关税(出口退税额)、政府支出、贸易条件等变量,通过Johansen协整检验、误差修正模型、格兰杰因果检验、脉冲响应函数和预测方差分解等计量方法进行了实证检验,结果表明,1978￣2005年,人民币实际汇率错位对出口贸易产生负面影响。其后,运用二元离散选择模型(Logit模型)进一步对二者关系进行了考察,得出了人民币实际汇率错位幅度与净出口呈负相关的结论,即汇率错位幅度越小,越有利于出口,从而出现贸易顺差。     

人民币升值影响中国粮食出口贸易的实证分析

J曲线效应理论是探讨汇率变动影响出口贸易的重要理论之一,主要通过构建计量经济学模型对人民币汇率影响中国粮食出口贸易进行实证研究,结果表明,该理论在人民币汇率影响中国粮食出口贸易方面得到了证实。研究还进一步显示,中国粮食出口与当年人民币的实际有效汇率显著地呈反向相关关系,且与前二年的人民币名义汇率变动的反向相关程度大于当年的实际有效汇率。此外,出口退税率和技术性贸易壁垒对粮食的出口贸易也产生了较大的影响。     

Modelling the business cycle of a small open economy: The Reserve Bank of New Zealand's DSGE model

We describe the underlying structure of the new forecast and policy model used at the Reserve Bank of New Zealand and evaluate its ability to explain New Zealand data. Unlike other estimated small-open-economy DSGE models, we find that more than one third of the domestic GDP growth is driven by foreign shocks. The elevated contribution of foreign shocks to the domestic economy is driven by our decision to exclude mapping export demand to data on world GDP. Estimating our model without any foreign demand data limits the response of exports to the real exchange variations. This feature makes exports and, consequently, domestic GDP much more sensitive to variations to foreign demand and raises the importance of foreign shocks to the domestic business cycle. Furthermore, our analysis suggests that a model with “adaptive” expectations is preferred by the data relative to the version of the model with “rational” expectations. In that case, the model explains nominal variables using on average much smaller shocks.     

A structural VAR analysis of the impact of macroeconomic shocks on Pakistan's textile exports

This paper creates a structural vector autoregression (SVAR) model which looks at the macroeconomic factors that impact the export of both finished and unfinished Pakistani textiles between 1980 and 2011. The analysis is unique in two ways: first, it separates unfinished (low value-added) textile exports from finished (high value-added) textile exports; second, it separates out the impact of aggregate exchange rate changes with respect to trading ‘partners’ from aggregate exchange rate changes with respect to trading ‘competitors’. We find that unfinished, or low value-added, Pakistani textile exports were positively impacted by the aggregate consumption of trading partners while finished, or high value-added, textile exports were negatively affected by these shocks. Also, a real depreciation of the Pakistani exchange rate leads to temporary increases in unfinished textile exports but sustained increases in the level of finished textile exports. Finally, positive shocks in the textile exports of competitor countries lead to temporary decreases in both unfinished and finished Pakistani textile exports, but these falls were followed by eventual increases in the exports of both.     

Determinants of India’s Exports

The objective of this paper is to examine the key determinants of India’s exports. The estimated equations show that the two variables influencing India’s export demand are the real effective exchange rate and world exports. The time trend variable which was introduced to take care of the stationarity problem and India’s GDP which is a proxy for availability also are statistically significant. Equations were also estimated at a disaggregated level of commodity groups. The article also focuses on measuring the relative contribution of the variables. For this, a new methodology is proposed. World exports which emerges as the dominant variable is however exogenous to Indian policy makers. This leaves nominal exchange rate as the tool available to policy makers. In the market determination of exchange rate, besides current account deficit, capital flows also play an important part. There is need to moderate the impact of large capital inflows on exchange rate through appropriate intervention so long as we continue to have current account deficit. An appreciating currency will erode the competitiveness of exports. Truly speaking, the critical factor is not so much exchange rate as competitiveness. In this context, maintaining domestic price stability and improving the productivity, particularly of the traded goods sector are equally important.

     

The Euro Effect on Eurozone Exports

In this article, we examine the impact of the real effective exchange rate for several countries in the Euro area over the period before and after the introduction of the euro. Based on ARDL modeling techniques, we estimate the long-run and short-run relationships between exports volumes and a number of key variables, namely Real Effective Exchange Rate, weighted GDP and Output Gap. This article is particularly oriented towards the study of long-term relationships between the exchange rate and global exports performance, on the one hand; and between exchange rates and intra-European exports performance, on the other. Two measures of exchange rate are considered: a global real exchange rate to investigate the impact of exchange rates on overall exports and an intra European real exchange rate calculated to detect its effect on intra-European trade. The study shows that there is a big difference between the impact of exchange rates on exports before and after the establishment of the European Monetary Union on the one hand, and between the impacts of exchange rates on intra-European global exports on the other hand.     

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.     

Same currency,different strategies? The (asymmetric) role of the exchange rate in shaping European agri-food exports

This article uses a nonlinear autoregressive distributed lag (NADRL) model introduced by Shin, Yu, and Greenwood-Nimmo (2014) to assess the role that the exchange rate plays in shaping European agri-food exports after the introduction of the Euro. Although the 10 countries of this study share the same currency (and thus a single nominal exchange rate with the US), cross-country discrepancies of exports’ reactions to exchange rate changes are evident. Moreover, I find that exchange rate changes influence exports asymmetrically in the long run. Euro appreciations are harmful to a lesser extent than Euro depreciations are beneficial for European agri-food exports. The magnitude of this effect is country-specific and varies considerably between individual exporting countries. Exported quantities are less affected by exchange rate fluctuations than export values, which is in line with local currency price stabilization strategies of the exporters. This finding is interpreted as a sign of an incomplete exchange rate pass-through due to strategic (asymmetric) markup adjustments by firms with heterogeneous productivity. Besides that, the outcomes suggest that nonprice competition might be in play in some cases.     

Do Exchange Rate Shocks Have Asymmetric Effects on Reserve Accumulation? Evidence from Emerging Markets*

It is generally argued that central banks in emerging market countries, motivated by a desire to defend export competitiveness, tend to intervene in foreign exchange markets to limit currency appreciations rather than depreciations. Using panel data from 13 emerging market countries for the period 1998:M1 to 2016:M12, we find that exchange rate shocks play an important role in determining the accumulation of international reserves. Moreover, we find evidence that central banks in emerging markets tend to follow a “leaning against the depreciation wind” policy, rather than the appreciation wind (i.e., we provide evidence of a “fear of depreciation”).     

AN ANALYSIS OF HONG KONG EXPORT PERFORMANCE

Abstract.  The study models the Hong Kong domestic exports and re-exports, compares the performance of exports to the rest of the world, the USA and Japan, and uses destination-and-export-type specific unit value indexes to construct real exchange rates. In general, Hong Kong exports display mean-reverting dynamics, are positively influenced by foreign income and are adversely affected by high value of its currency. The lagged export variable, foreign income, and real exchange rate provide most of the explanatory power. Other variables explain marginally the variability of Hong Kong exports.     

The effects of exchange rate uncertainty on exports

We investigate the effects of exchange rate uncertainty on exports in the context of a multivariate framework in which a structural open economy vector autoregression is modified to accommodate multivariate GARCH-in-Mean errors, as detailed in Elder (Elder, J., 2004. Another perspective on the effects of inflation uncertainty. Journal of Money, Credit, and Banking 36, 912–928). Our measure of exchange rate uncertainty is the conditional standard deviation of the forecast error of the change in the exchange rate. We isolate the effects of exchange rate uncertainty on exports and also analyze how accounting for exchange rate uncertainty affects the response of exports to exchange rate shocks. We estimate the model using aggregate monthly data for the United States, over the flexible exchange rate period (since 1973). We use full information maximum likelihood estimation procedures and find that exchange rate uncertainty has a negative and significant effect on US exports. We also find that accounting for exchange rate uncertainty tends to strengthen the dynamic response of exports to shocks in the exchange rate and that exports respond asymmetrically to positive and negative exchange rate shocks of equal magnitude.     

影响中国出口贸易的主导因素分析

本文采用自回归分布滞后模型和边限检验方法,利用1997年1季度至2008年4季度的数据估计了中国进出口贸易需求的收入弹性、价格弹性和汇率弹性,结果发现国外收入变化是影响中国出口的主要因素,产品价格对出口的影响较小,而人民币汇率波动对出口的影响不确定。因此,如果采取低价格促进出口的措施,不仅是低效的,而且是得不偿失的。转向以内需驱动为主的经济增长方式,是中国经济发展的必然战略选择。     

Exchange rate uncertainty and US bilateral fresh fruit and fresh vegetable trade: an application of the gravity model

In order to analyse the effect of exchange rate uncertainty, we apply an empirical gravity equation to two sets of US bilateral trade data: fresh fruit over the period 1976–1999 for a panel of 26 countries; and fresh vegetables over the period 1976–2006 for a panel of nine countries. Based on panel estimation methods, and using both a moving SD measure and the Perée and Steinherr (1989) measure of exchange rate uncertainty, the results show that US bilateral fresh fruit trade has been negatively affected by exchange rate uncertainty. We also find some evidence that the exchange rate between the US dollar and the currencies of Latin American trading partners accounts for most of the negative impact of exchange rate uncertainty on bilateral trade flows in fresh fruit. In contrast, when using panel estimation methods and both measures of exchange rate uncertainty, we find no statistically significant evidence for any negative effect of exchange rate uncertainty on US bilateral fresh vegetable trade. However, we do find a statistically significant negative effect for exchange rate uncertainty when we estimate a US export gravity equation for fresh vegetables using the same panel of countries.     

Structural changes in exports of an emerging economy: Case of Turkey

This paper indicates that Turkish exports are subject to structural changes as Turkey integrates into global production networks. Integration, which leads vertical specialization in production and changes in the commodity composition of Turkish exports in favor of non-traditional commodities, paces up during economic reform periods. As the export shares of non-traditional commodities, which have higher import and income sensitivity but lower real exchange rate elasticity, increases, coefficients of the aggregate export function change accordingly. Nevertheless, high import and income elasticity of exports imply that the global growth pattern plays a significant role in determining exports of Turkey.     

Exchange rate nonlinearities in EMU exports to the US

This paper investigates the determinants of bilateral exports to the US for twelve EMU countries. Although export demand functions have been studied for at least seventy years of time, the issue of nonlinearity in export demand equations has been benignantly neglected in time series econometrics so far. Accordingly, this paper fills this gap and figures out if exports react to exchange rate changes in a nonlinear fashion. To tackle this issue, we apply the newly developed nonlinear ARDL bounds testing approach of Shin et al. (2011) and find that disregarding nonlinearities might be too restrictive. Our evidence points to the fact that exports react differently to appreciations and depreciations. More precisely, it seems as if exports respond stronger to depreciations than to appreciations. Evidence in favor of hysteresis is less robust.     

Real Options Effects on Employment: Does Exchange Rate Uncertainty Matter for Aggregation?

Abstract. In a baseline micro model a band of inaction due to hiring and firing costs is widened by option value effects of exchange rate uncertainty. Based on this micro foundation, an aggregation approach is presented. Under uncertainty, intervals of weak response to exchange rate reversals (called ‘play’ areas) are introduced on the macro level. ‘Spurts’ in new employment or firing may occur after an initially weak response. Since these mechanisms may apply to other ‘investment’ cases where the aggregation of microeconomic real options effects under uncertainty are relevant, they may even be of a more general interest.