The exchange rate, employment and hours: What firm-level data say

Using a representative panel of manufacturing firms, we estimate the response of job and hours worked to currency swings, showing that it depends primarily on firms' exposure to foreign sales and their reliance on imported inputs. We also show that, for a given international exposure, the response to exchange rate fluctuations is magnified when firms exhibit a lower monopoly power and when they face foreign pressure in the domestic market through import penetration. The degree of substitutability between imported and other inputs and the distribution of workers by type introduce additional degrees of specificity in the employment sensitivity to exchange rate swings. Moreover, we show that episodes of entry and exit in the export market are associated with a heterogeneous employment response depending on the degree of external orientation when the switch of export status occurs.     

Debt composition and balance sheet effects of exchange rate depreciations: a firm-level analysis for Chile

By studying the behavior of foreign currency borrowing, maturity, sales and the investment decisions of firms listed in the Chilean Stock Exchange from 1994 to 2001, this paper assesses whether in the aftermath of the Asian crisis of the late 1990s the depreciation of the local currency (Chilean peso) affected these firms’ real and financial decisions. At issue is the contrast between a negative net-worth effect and a potential expansionary competitiveness effect for the tradable sector. We find that there exists little evidence that devaluations cause a positive impact on investment and sales for firms with dollar denominated debt. The maturity structure of Chilean firms is mainly explained by the size of the companies. Large firms will have a debt structure biased to higher maturities. Analyzing dollar denominated debt composition the evidence shows that larger firms maintained a higher proportion of dollar denominated debt reflecting the development of the financial sector in Chile.     

The employment effects of tariffs under a free exchange rate regime: A monetary approach

This paper develops a ‘monetary’ approach for the analysis of tariff policy under a free (flexible) exchange rate regime. The paper concludes that the imposition of a tariff unambiguously causes a deterioration in the level of employment under free rates even without a Laursen-Metzler effect on saving.     

如果人民币升值……

美籍华人金先生在听到人民币升值的传闻后便卖掉了一些在美国的股票，然后回国在上海购置了一栋价值20万美元的物业。据说在海外华人中，类似陈先生的做法还为数不少。     

The dynamics of exchange rate regimes: Fixes, floats, and flips

The impermanence of fixed exchange rates has become a stylized fact in international finance. The combination of the “mirage” view that pegs do not really peg with the “fear of floating” view that floats do not really float generates the conclusion that exchange rate regimes are, in practice, unimportant for the behavior of the exchange rate. This is consistent with evidence on the irrelevance of exchange rate regimes for general macroeconomic performance. Recent studies, however, show that the exchange rate regime matters. This can be understood by considering the dynamics of exchange rate regimes. We demonstrate that the “mirage” view is somewhat misleading and incomplete. Pegs frequently break, but many do last. Also, there is a high degree of flipping, that is, the re-formation of pegs that have broken. Thus, a fixed exchange rate today is a good predictor that one will exist in the future. We also investigate the quantitative effect of fixed exchange rates. While the “fear of floating” view suggests little actual difference in fixed and floating rates with respect to exchange rate volatility, we show that fixed exchange rates exhibit considerably greater bilateral exchange rate stability than flexible rates, both today and in the future.     

The Asian flu and Russian virus: the international transmission of crises in firm-level data

This paper examines how the Asian and Russian crises affected different types of firms around the world. It constructs a new data set of financial statistics, industry information, geographic data, and stock returns for over 10?000 companies in 46 countries. Results show that firms competing with exports from the crisis countries, or with direct sales exposure to the crisis countries, had significantly lower abnormal stock returns. Firms with higher debt ratios, however, did not experience lower abnormal returns. Country-specific effects, although important determinants of company stock returns, are generally less important than firm-specific characteristics. These results suggest that trade channels are important factors determining how crises are transmitted internationally.     

谈人民币汇率制度改革对周边国家汇率的影响

本文采用时间序列分析方法对人民币汇改前后美元兑日元、美元兑港币两种货币汇率收益率序列进行建模,研究它们的风险变化规律。研究结果表明,美元兑日元,美元兑港币汇率变化的风险评估中,所建模型很好的体现了人民币汇改这一事件的影响,通过对比分析其条件方差序列,进行两种汇率的风险评估。风险评估结果显示人民币升值这一事件对美元/日元、美元/港币汇率的影响较小,风险水平变化不大。     

Order flow and exchange rate dynamics in electronic brokerage system data

We analyze the association between order flow and exchange rates using a new dataset representing a majority of global interdealer transactions in the two most-traded currency pairs at the one minute frequency over a six-year time period. This long span of high-frequency data allows us to gain new insights about the joint behavior of these series. We first confirm the presence of a substantial association between interdealer order flow and exchange rate returns at horizons ranging from 1 min to two weeks, but find that the association is substantially weaker at longer horizons. We study the time-variation of the association between exchange rate returns and order flow both intradaily and over the long term, and show that the relationship appears to be stronger when market liquidity is lower. Overall, our study supports the view that liquidity effects play an important role in the relationship between order flow and exchange rate changes. This by no means rules out a role for order flow as a channel by which fundamental information is transmitted to the market, as we show that our findings are quite consistent with a recent model by Bacchetta and Van Wincoop (2006: Can information heterogeneity explain the exchange rate determination puzzle? American Economic Review, 96, pp. 552–576.) that combines both liquidity and information effects.     

Real exchange rates,dollarization and industrial employment in Latin America

We use a panel dataset on industrial employment and trade for 9 Latin American countries for which liability dollarization data at the industrial level is available. We test whether real exchange rate fluctuations have a significant impact on employment, and analyse whether the impact varies with the degree of trade openness and liability dollarization. Econometric evidence supports the view that real exchange rate depreciations can impact employment growth positively, but this effect is reversed as liability dollarization increases. In industries with high liability dollarization, the overall impact of a real exchange rate depreciation can be negative.     

The exchange rate and the price level

The US-Dollar has inflated the world. Its vehicle is the present international monetary system of pegged exchange rates. This system which was introduced to stimulate International trade and division of labour between the different countries became an important promoter of world wide inflation.     

The choice of exchange rate bands: balancing credibility and flexibility

This paper develops a framework for the optimal choice of exchange rate bands within an environment in which policymakers dislike nominal exchange rate variability, but value the flexibility to adjust the nominal exchange rate in response to shocks, in order to attain real exchange rate objectives. The paper provides an endogenous characterization of the optimal exchange rate band in terms of the underlying distribution of shocks to the current and capital accounts of the balance of payments and in terms of the commitment reputation of policymakers.     

关于货币供给量、外汇储备与人民汇率关系的实证研究

本文利用我国2000-2009年的月度数据,讨论了我国短期内货币供给量、外汇储备和人民币兑美元汇率的相互关系.结果表明,长期内外汇储备的增加并不是导致人民币兑美元汇率升值的理由货币供给量与外汇储备不存在Granger因果关系.     

Monetary policy, foreign exchange intervention, and the exchange rate in a unifying framework

The structural VAR model is developed to jointly analyze the effects of foreign exchange intervention and (money or interest rate setting) conventional monetary policy on the exchange rate, the two types of policy reactions to the exchange rate, and interactions between the two types of policies. First, many interactions among the two types of policies and the exchange rate are found, which suggests that a joint analysis is important. Second, foreign exchange intervention has substantial effects on the exchange rate, reacts to the exchange rate significantly (to stabilize the exchange rate), and signals future conventional monetary policy stance changes (to back up the intervention). This suggests the importance of modeling foreign exchange intervention explicitly in the study of monetary policy and exchange rate behaviors. Many other interesting results on the interactions among the two types of policies and the exchange rate are also documented.     

Women empowerment and insecurity: firm-level evidence

Business Economics - Women’s engagement in the formal economy is generally considered an important means to economic empowerment. In many developing countries, however, increasing female...     

A dynamic model of tariffs,output and employment under flexible exchange rates

A portfolio balance model of the open economy with imperfectly flexible wages and rational expectations is used to analyze the macroeconomic effects of commercial policy. Previous analyses have led to the ‘counterintuitive’ and ‘almost inconceivable’ conclusion that, under flexible exchange rates, a tariff is contractionary. By considering a tariff in a dynamic setting and focusing on the process of adjustment, it is shown that there may exist a tradeoff between a tariffs short-run and long-run effects. In certain circumstances, a tariff imposed under flexible exchange rates increases output and employment initially while reducing them subsequently.     

The causes of real exchange rate movements

Increasing exchange rate fluctuations, such as those that have occurred in the US dollar, have recently revived the discussion about the causes of such movements and the criteria for calculating the long-term over- or undervaluation of a currency. This article stresses some aspects that have attracted little attention hitherto.     

Latin America: Environmental and firm-level challenges

During the last decades Latin America, as the rest of the world, has gone through a process of increased commercial openness and due to the commodities price boom of the last years the region has grown significantly. However competitiveness hasn't improved much, mostly due to lack of concern from governments. Companies, though, cope with the increase in competition resulting from the greater openness by refining their management practices in the different management areas: marketing, finance, information technology and strategy. Academics study these effects in the papers that comprise the special issue of the Journal of Business Research with the best papers from the conferences of the Business Association for Latin American Studies (BALAS).     

人民币汇率制度改革回顾与展望

人民币汇率改革主要包括进一步完善人民币汇率形成机制与实施积极的人民币汇率政策两个方面.当前人民币汇率政策面临严峻的挑战.本文回顾了我国改革开放以来汇率制度改革的进程,分析了现行汇率制度的利弊.在对未来汇率制度改革展望中,提出了近期汇率制度执行中应当采取的策略以及实现中长期改革战略的对策建议.