The long-run convergence of exchange rates and prices in the European Union

This paper provides tests of Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) for members of the EU-27 not in the euro area, using multivariate and panel cointegration techniques, for the period since the introduction of the euro currency in 1999 until the end of 2009. The results indicate that long-run PPP holds in ten cases and that domestic prices or the nominal exchange rate is the main driver of the short-run adjustment to stationarity. These results are discussed in terms of monetary convergence in the long-run.     

Inflation targeting and real exchange rates: A bias correction approach

This paper examines whether inflation targeting (IT) influences purchasing power parity (PPP) by a bias correction approach under cross-sectional dependence. The recursive mean adjustment (RMA) method proposed by So and Shin (1999) and Shin and So (2001) is employed to correct a downward bias in half-life estimates of real exchange rates. More importantly, the empirical results show that IT lowers variability of real exchange rates and plays an important role in providing favorable evidence for long-run PPP.     

Real exchange rates,asset prices and terms of trade: A theoretical analysis

This paper develops a continuous-time two-country dynamic equilibrium model, in which the real exchange rates, asset prices, and terms of trade are jointly determined in the presence of nontradable goods. The model determines the relation between the financial markets and real goods markets in the world economy and their responses to various shocks under the home bias assumption. A positive domestic supply shock induces a positive return on the domestic asset markets and a deterioration of terms of trade that improves the foreign output and boosts the foreign asset markets. Demand shocks act in the opposite way. This model also analyses the impact of change in the relative price of nontradable to tradable goods on the terms of trade and asset markets. A higher productivity growth in tradable goods than in nontradable goods leads to a higher relative price of nontradable to tradable goods, which appreciates the real exchange rate, deteriorates the terms of trade, and depresses the domestic and foreign asset markets. A lower relative price of nontradable goods depreciates the real exchange rate, improves the terms of trade, and lifts both the domestic and foreign asset markets.     

Monetary shocks,exchange rates and trade balances: Evidence from inflation targeting countries

This paper investigates the relationship among monetary policy shocks, exchange rates and trade balances in five Inflation Targeting Countries (ITCs). The investigation is based on Structural Vector Error Correction Models (SVECMs) with long run and short run restrictions. The findings reveal that a contractionary monetary policy shock leads to a decrease in price level, a decrease in output, an appreciation in exchange rate, and an improvement in trade balance in the very short run. Our findings contradict the findings of price, output, exchange rate and trade puzzles that have been found in many empirical studies. Furthermore they are consistent with the theoretical expectations regarding the effect of a contractionary policy. The only long run restriction that we imposed on our models is that money does not affect real macroeconomic variables in the long run, which is consistent with both Keynesian and monetarist approaches.     

On the endogeneity of exchange rate regimes

The literature has identified three main approaches to account for the way exchange rate regimes are chosen: (i) the optimal currency area theory; (ii) the financial view, which highlights the consequences of international financial integration; and (iii) the political view, which stresses the use of exchange rate anchors as credibility enhancers in politically challenged economies. Using de facto and de jure regime classifications, we test the empirical relevance of these approaches separately and jointly. We find overall empirical support for all of them, although the incidence of financial and political aspects varies substantially between industrial and non-industrial economies. Furthermore, we find that the link between de facto regimes and their underlying fundamentals has been surprisingly stable over the years, suggesting that the global trends often highlighted in the literature can be traced back to the evolution of their natural determinants, and that actual policies have been less influenced by the frequent twist and turns in the exchange rate regime debate.     

Classifying exchange rate regimes: Deeds vs. words

Most of the empirical literature on exchange rate regimes uses the IMF de jure classification based on the regime announced by the governments, despite the recognized inconsistencies between reported and actual policies in many cases. To address this problem, we construct a de facto classification based on data on exchange rates and international reserves from all IMF-reporting countries over the period 1974-2000, which we believe provides a meaningful alternative for future empirical work on the topic. The classification sheds new light on several stylized facts previously reported in the literature. In particular, we find that the de facto pegs have remained stable throughout the last decade, although an increasing number of them shy away from an explicit commitment to a fixed regime (“hidden pegs”). We confirm the hollowing out hypothesis but show that it does not apply to countries with limited access to capital markets. We also find that pure floats are associated with only relatively minor nominal exchange rate volatility and that the recent increase in the number of de jure floats goes hand in hand with an increase in the number of de facto dirty floats (“fear of floating”).     

Fertility and the real exchange rate

Abstract .  We use a quinquennial data set covering 87 countries between 1975 and 2005 to investigate empirically the relationship between fertility and the real effective exchange rate. Theoretically, a country experiencing a decline in its fertility rate can be expected to experience a real depreciation. We test and confirm this hypothesis, controlling for a number of other potential determinants. We find a statistically significant and robust link between fertility and the exchange rate. Our point-estimate is that a decline in the fertility rate of one child per woman is associated with a depreciation of approximately 15% in the real effective exchange rate.     

Exchange rates and trade: How important is hysteresis in trade?

This paper looks at the responsiveness of a country's export supply to exchange rate changes and measures its quantitative importance by breaking down export adjustments between changes in output levels by existing exporters (intensive margin) and movements due to changes in the number of exporters (extensive margin). Using data on a representative sample of Spanish manufacturing firms, the paper finds sunk costs hysteresis in entry and exit to be an important factor in determining export market participation, but unrelated to exchange rate uncertainty. The sunk costs of entering the market appear to be much larger than the costs of exiting the market. Finally, although hysteresis exists, its effect on the responsiveness of aggregate trade volumes to exchange rate changes is quantitatively small. A 10% home currency depreciation results in an increases in export volume due to the increase in the number of exporting firms of only 1.4% of export volume.     

Nonlinear dynamics in exchange rate deviations from the monetary fundamentals: An empirical study

This paper reexamines empirical performance of the monetary exchange rate model with nonlinear dynamics of exchange rate deviation from the monetary fundamentals. First, we apply unit root test of Park and Shintani (2005) to post-Bretton Woods exchange rate data and able to reject the null of unit root deviation from monetary fundamentals against alternative hypothesis of nonlinear stationary process for deutschemark, pound, and Swiss franc. Our empirical results find that exchange rates show high degree of mean-reversion with larger deviation and long periods of overvaluation and undervaluation of dollar. We also find empirical evidence of predictability of the monetary fundamentals at longer horizons.     

Real exchange rates in emerging economies

We analyse the role of various investment margins in explaining the real exchange rate appreciation recorded in European transition countries. We present a model that introduces a quality investment margin and show that the margin is needed for replicating the observed pace of real exchange rate appreciation.     

Panel cointegration and the monetary exchange rate model

This paper re-examines the validity of the monetary exchange rate model during the post-Bretton Woods era for 18 OECD countries. Our analysis simultaneously considers the presence of both cross-sectional dependence and multiple structural breaks, which have not received much attention in previous studies of the monetary model. The empirical results indicate that the monetary model emerges only when the presence of structural breaks and cross-country dependence has been taken into account. Evidence is also provided suggesting that the breaks in the monetary model can be derived from the underlying purchasing power parity relation.     

Revisiting the interest rate–exchange rate nexus: a Markov-switching approach

In this paper the interest rate–exchange rate nexus and the effectiveness of an interest rate defense are investigated empirically. I present a reduced form evidence which characterizes the empirical relationship between interest rates and exchange rates. I use a Markov-switching specification of the nominal exchange rate with time-varying transition probabilities. Empirical evidence from six developing countries: Indonesia, South Korea, the Philippines, Thailand, Mexico, and Turkey indicates that raising nominal interest rates leads to a higher probability of switching to a crisis regime. Thus, the empirical results presented here may support the view that a high interest rate policy is unable to defend the exchange rate. Unlike other studies which consider linear models only, my findings are robust and consistent over different countries and crisis episodes (Asian 1997 crises, Mexico 1994 crisis, and Turkey 1994, 2001 crises). In order to explain the empirical findings, I construct a simple theoretical model by incorporating an interest rate rule in the model proposed by Jeanne and Rose (2002) [Jeanne, O., Rose, A.K., 2002. Noise trading and exchange rate regimes, Quarterly Journal of Economics. 117 (2) 537–569]. The model has multiple equilibria, and under plausible conditions, higher exchange rate volatility is associated with higher interest rates.     

A new measure of financial development: Theory leads measurement

This study presents a new measure of financial development that is directly derived from theory. Our measure, the Marginal Utilization of Debt (hereafter, MUD) comes from the seminal work of Myers (1984), Myers and Majluf (1984) and Shyam-Sunder and Myers (1999). Further, it is directly related to the development facts of Gurley and Shaw (1955). MUD is a global measure that reflects conditions in both debt and equity markets. It varies enormously across nations; from 0.23 in Australia at one extreme to 0.96 in Turkey at the other. Cross‐country variations in MUD are not random; they are related to special‐purpose measures of debt and equity market advancement from the financial development literature. Richer, more advanced nations have smaller average MUDs. We argue that the MUD may be useful for a variety of purposes and provide three example applications.     

Financial globalization and debt maturity in emerging economies

This paper studies how financial globalization affects debt structure in emerging economies. We find that by accessing international markets, firms increase their long-term debt and extend their debt maturity. In contrast, with financial liberalization, long-term debt decreases and the maturity structure shifts to the short term for the average firm. These effects are stronger in economies with less developed domestic financial systems. The evidence is consistent with financial integration having opposite effects on the firms that are able to integrate with world markets and obtain financing globally, relative to the firms that rely on domestic financing only.     

Beggar-thyself or beggar-thy-neighbour? The welfare effects of monetary policy

This paper examines whether monetary expansion is a beggar-thyself or beggar-thy-neighbour policy. Obstfeld and Rogoff (1995) show that monetary expansion under producer currency pricing increases domestic and foreign overall welfare, in cases where the cross-country substitutability is high. If the cross-country substitutability is low, then monetary expansion is a beggar-thyself policy that reduces domestic welfare and increases foreign welfare (Corsetti & Pesenti 2001; Tille 2001). In this paper, we will show that regardless of whether the cross-country substitutability is high or low, monetary expansion is always a beggar-thyself policy in the short run.     

Financial crises as herds: overturning the critiques

Financial crises are widely argued to be due to herd behavior. Yet recently developed models of herd behavior have been subjected to two critiques which seem to make them inapplicable to financial crises. Herds disappear from these models if two of their unappealing assumptions are modified: if their zero-one investment decisions are made continuous and if their investors are allowed to trade assets with market-determined prices. However, both critiques are overturned—herds reappear in these models—once another of their unappealing assumptions is modified: if, instead of moving in a prespecified order, investors can move whenever they choose.     

The role of inventories and capacity utilization as shock absorbers

We examine the role of inventories and capacity utilization (of both capital and labor) for the propagation of business cycle fluctuations. We document a new set of facts regarding the U.S. cyclical regularities of inventories and capacity utilization. First, we find that capital utilization and the flows of services from both capital and labor are procyclical, and comove with the holdings of inventories. Second, we find that labor utilization is procyclical as well, but is weakly negatively correlated with inventories. We build a model that accounts for these facts, and also accounts for the stylized inventory facts, i.e., inventory holdings are procyclical, while the inventory-to-sales ratio is countercyclical. The analysis is centered on the effects of two possible shocks: preference (demand) shocks and technology shocks. Our model shows that inventories and the rate of capital utilization are mostly complements, while inventories and the rate of labor utilization are mostly substitutes. It further shows that temporary demand shocks emphasize the role of inventories as being a “shock absorber,” whereas high-persistence demand shocks, as well as technology shocks of any persistence, emphasize the role of inventories as being a complement to consumption.     

Real exchange rates and real interest rate differentials: A present value interpretation

Although the real exchange rate-real interest rate (RERI) relationship is central to most open economy macroeconomic models, empirical support for the relationship is generally found to be rather weak. In this paper we re-investigate the RERI relationship using bilateral US real exchange rate data spanning the period 1978-2007. Instead of testing one particular model, we build on Campbell and Shiller [1987. Cointegration tests of present-value models. Journal of Political Economy 95, 1062-1088] to propose a metric of the economic significance of the relationship. Our empirical results provide robust evidence that the RERI link is economically significant and that the real interest rate differential is a reasonable approximation of the expected rate of depreciation over longer horizons.     

Internal and external exchange rate equilibrium in a cointegration framework. An application to the Spanish peseta

A simple cointegration methodology is used to compute the equilibrium real exchange rate for the peseta. The stock of foreign assets and the evolution of sectoral prices are considered to be the fundamentals for the real exchange rate. After testing for cointegration, we proceed to decompose the series into a permanent and a transitory component, following the method devised by Gonzalo and Granger. The permanent component of the real exchange rate corresponds to its (time-varying) equilibrium value, and the deviation of the actual real exchange rate from this equilibrium value gives an estimation of the degree of misalignment of the real exchange rate. By the end of the sample (1998:1), the peseta is estimated to be undervalued around 6%.     

Elections, exchange rates and reform in Latin America

In this paper, we study the link between real exchange rate (RER) depreciation and elections in Latin America. Our contribution is threefold. First, we employ a statistical model that takes into account the pervasive conditional heteroskedasticity found in financial data and includes a wide range of macroeconomic variables as regressors. Second, we test whether the wave of central bank reform that swept the region has had any effect on the existence or strength of the electoral cycle in exchange rates. Third, we test an additional hypothesis, namely, that financial liberalization may also be an important variable explaining changes in electoral effects on the real exchange rate. In a panel of 9 Latin American countries with available macroeconomic data and a history of exogenous election dates, we confirm the previous findings that real depreciation intensifies after elections even when modeling the significant conditional heteroskedasticity in these data. We also show, for the first time in the literature, that post-election exchange rates are significantly less predictable. We go on to test whether central bank reform has influenced the way in which elections affect the RER in Latin America. If reform has been effective at reducing political manipulation of the exchange rate, then any relationship we see between elections and the RER before central bank reform should be mitigated in the post-reform era. We find that the relationship disappears after reform and that post-reform real exchange rates are also significantly less volatile. Finally, we show that financial liberalization seems to have a stronger effect on the conditional variance of the RER than does central bank reform, but reform has a stronger impact on the conditional mean.