FDI,SECTORAL OUTPUT AND REAL EXCHANGE RATE DYNAMICS UNDER FINANCIAL OPENNESS

This paper adopts an alternative approach to the study of the impact of capital inflow on the real exchange rate by foremost, analysing the effect of FDI inflow on the ratio of tradables to nontradables, and then estimating the relationship between the tradable‐nontradable ratio and the real exchange rate, while accounting for the role of financial openness. Based on data for a group of developing countries, the findings show that an increase in FDI inflow is associated with a decrease in the tradable‐nontradable ratio, and that an increase in the tradable‐nontradable ratio leads to a depreciation of the real exchange rate; this effect being greater with an increase in financial openness. This suggests that an increase in FDI inflow could result in an expansion of the nontradable sector, which would be associated with a greater appreciation of the real exchange rate under a higher level of financial openness.     

人民币实际汇率与中国两部门生产率差异的关系——基于巴拉萨—萨缪尔森效应的实证分析

长期实际汇率主要取决于经济的供给面,即生产率的变化,这一思想体现在巴拉萨—萨缪尔森效应的模型中。文章从巴拉萨—萨缪尔森效应的理论出发选择合适的计量模型,然后以制造业和服务业分别表示贸易品部门和非贸易品部门,通过差分回归模型和协整检验来分析人民币实际汇率与中国两部门间生产率差异之间的关系,回归结果符合巴拉萨—萨缪尔森效应的结论。在1980~2004年间,人民币实际汇率的变动趋势与中国两部门间的生产率差异变化趋势基本相符:非贸易品部门生产率提高幅度大时,人民币趋向于贬值;而贸易品部门生产率提高幅度大时,人民币实际汇率趋向于升值。     

Catching up: The role of demand, supply and regulated price effects on the real exchange rates of four accession countries

The main aim of this paper is to examine the exchange rate behaviour of a group of four transitional, EU accession countries, with a view to making policy recommendations regarding their full accession to the European Monetary Union. We employ a dynamic OLS panel estimator to investigate the relative importance of demand and supply influences on the exchange rates of these countries. Our analysis shows that both supply‐ and demand‐side effects are important for the accession countries, although their overall effect on inflation differentials and competitiveness seems to be small. An additional focus of the paper is the examination of the role that administrated, or regulated, prices and the productivity of the distribution sector play in the real exchange rate dynamics. Using a unique database we show that administrative prices have been a powerful force behind price and real exchange developments for our group of accession countries. The distribution sector is shown to have an independent effect on the internal price ratio over and above that generated by the Balassa–Samuelson effect.     

Financial Openness and the Dutch Disease

This paper studies the relationship between the degree of financial openness and Dutch disease effects of capital inflows in developing countries. The results reveal that an increase in financial openness leads to an appreciation of the real exchange rate. In particular, the study shows that an increase in inflow of foreign direct investments (FDI) results in an appreciation of the real exchange rate in more financially open countries only. The results also suggest that there is a trade‐off between the resource movement effect and the spending effect in more financially open economies following an increase in FDI inflows, such that the more the tradable sector expands relative to the nontradable sector, the greater is the real exchange rate appreciation.     

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。     

Exchange Rate Movements and the Distribution of Productivity

This paper examines how movements in the real exchange rate affect the distribution of labor productivity within industries. Appreciations of the local currency expose domestic plants to more competition as export opportunities shrink and import competition intensifies. As a result, smaller less productive plants are forced from the market, which truncates the lower end of the productivity distribution, and surviving plants face a reduction in physical sales (unless they adjust their mark‐up), which, in the presence of scale economies, can lower productivity. Using quantile regression, we find that movements in the exchange rate do, indeed, have distributional effects on productivity.     

Real Exchange Rate Trends and Growth: A Model of East Asia

In contrast to the Balassa–Samuelson hypothesis, many fast-growing Asian countries have experienced little trend real exchange rate appreciation, or even depreciation. Moreover, their long-run real exchange rate trend seems to be dominated by movements in traded goods prices. A model is developed which is consistent with these observations. As in the Balassa–Samuelson model, productivity growth is concentrated in the traded goods sector. Nevertheless the real exchange rate may exhibit trend depreciation, driven by persistent deviations in the price of traded goods from those in the reference country. The key feature of the model is the presence of endogenous productivity growth in the distribution services sector.     

Export Market Dynamics and Plant‐Level Productivity: Impact of Tariff Reductions and Exchange‐Rate Cycles*

In this paper, we examine how changes in tariff rates and industry‐specific real exchange rates affect the entry/exit process to export markets and productivity growth. Using the experience of the Canadian manufacturing sector over three decades, we find that firms in export markets enjoy faster productivity growth than non‐participants. The size of the growth advantage depends on whether real exchange rates are increasing or decreasing. The increase in the value of the Canadian dollar during the post‐2000 period almost completely offset the productivity growth advantages enjoyed by new exporters during this period.     

Productivity Shocks and Real Effective Exchange Rates

This paper provides new insights into the relationship between exchange rates and productivity developments for European Economies. We focus on the question whether productivity changes have a long‐run impact on real effective exchange rates for a large number of European economies. Focusing on a sample period running from 1995 until 2013, we adopt a cointegrated vector autoregressive approach and distinguish between long‐run equilibrium, short‐run dynamics and long‐run impact of shocks. Our findings show that for several industrialized economies, real effective exchange rates and labor productivity are not related over the long‐run. A possible explanation for this result is that wage developments do not reflect increases in labor productivity to a large degree, which prevents a transmission to the real effective exchange rate through the price channel. The results for Central and Eastern European Countries are more encouraging since a positive impact of labor productivity on real effective exchange rate is frequently observed.     

Productivity Trends and the Sterling Real Exchange Rates*

This paper provides favorable econometric evidence for a productivity‐based model of the pound/euro real exchange rate. We find that a 1% increase in UK productivity is consistent with a 3.5% real depreciation of sterling. Likewise, a 1% increase in euro area productivity is compatible with a 5.16% real appreciation of sterling. The asymmetric response of UK and foreign productivity shocks corresponds well with our model if UK labor supply is more elastic than euro area labor supply. Estimates of equilibrium exchange rates suggest that sterling was not overvalued at its 2004Q3 level vis‐à‐vis the euro.     

China's economic growth and its real exchange rate

The shocks that underlie China's comparatively rapid growth include gains in productivity, factor accumulation and policy reforms that increase allocative efficiency. The well-known Balassa–Samuelson hypothesis links productivity growth in tradable industries with real appreciations. Yet it relies heavily on the law of one price applying for tradable goods, against which there is now considerable evidence. In its absence, other growth shocks also affect the real exchange rate by influencing relative supply or demand for home product varieties. This paper investigates the pre-conditions for the Balassa–Samuelson hypothesis to predict a real appreciation in the Chinese case. It then quantifies the links between all growth shocks and the Chinese real exchange rate using a dynamic model of the global economy with open capital accounts and full demographic underpinnings to labor supply. The results suggest that financial capital inflows most affect the real exchange rate in the short term, while differential productivity is strong in the medium term. Contrary to expectation, in the long term demographic forces prove to be weak relative to changes in the skill composition of the labor force, which enhances services sector performance and depreciates the real exchange rate.     

结构负利：流通业比重与地区经济增长*

作为国民经济中的基础性和先导性产业,流通业在国民经济中的比重呈现先下降后上升的U型演变趋势。本文利用扩展的索罗模型和中国省际地区面板数据探讨流通业比重变化对地区总体生产率和经济增长的影响。研究结果表明,首先,地区总体生产率与流通业比重呈显著的负相关关系。其次,地区人均产出增长率与当期流通业比重呈负相关关系,而与上期流通业比重呈正相关关系。流通业比重对地区人均产出增长率的净效应既受到地区总体生产率与流通业比重之间负向关系的影响,也受到地区经济增长收敛性的影响。根据模拟实验,2009-2014年中国流通业比重上升导致人均产出增长率约下降136个百分点。最后,地区流通效率在“流通业比重-总体生产率-经济增长”关系中发挥着明显的调节作用。在流通效率越高的地区,流通业比重上升对地区总体生产率和地区人均产出增长率的负向作用越弱。因此,地方政府可以通过提高本地区流通效率来缓解流通业比重上升带来的“结构负利”。     

International Transmission of Monetary Shocks and the Non‐neutrality of International Money

Monetary shocks and how they are transmitted internationally are investigated in this paper. The paper shows that where a national currency is used as an international medium of exchange, the international money is non‐neutral. In particular, an increase in the supply of the international money leads to a transfer of real resources to the international money‐issuing country from its trading partner. It also induces an expansion of the nontradable sector in the international money‐issuing country, and an expansion of the tradable sector in its trading partner. The real impact of a monetary shock is greater under a fixed exchange rate system than under a flexible exchange rate system.     

The Balassa–Samuelson Effect in a Developing Country

Some Asian countries experience small real exchange rate appreciations or even a real depreciation despite a fast growth in tradable productivity. A key‐characteristic of these countries is that they are constrained on capital inflows. Is the Balassa–Samuelson theory still valid in those countries? Are there other factors likely to explain real exchange rate (RER) changes? To address these questions, we develop a two‐sector model in which a small open economy faces a constraint on capital inflows. In this setting, the RER does not only depend on productivity, but also on other factors like the rate of time preference, the age dependency ratio or the level of the external constraint. A calibration of the constrained economy model seems to match at least qualitatively empirical evidence for China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, and Singapore, between 1970 and 1992.     

Real convergence and its illusions

This paper uses a multi-country dynamic general equilibrium model to illustrate real convergence processes in a small open catching-up economy. Our results indicate that even if the convergence is driven by smoothly evolving processes, the dynamic adjustments of key macrovariables can be far from smooth. We also demonstrate that overly optimistic expectations about current or future productivity shifts can generate sizable boom–bust cycles. A comparison across alternative monetary regimes reveals that a flexible exchange rate helps to smooth real convergence processes and misperceptions associated with tradable sector productivity, while it generates more volatility in scenarios based on nontradable sector productivity developments.     

The Financial Resource Curse*

In this paper, we present a model of the financial resource curse (i.e., episodes of abundant access to foreign capital coupled with weak productivity growth). We study a two‐sector (i.e., tradable and non‐tradable) small open economy. The tradable sector is the engine of growth, and productivity growth is increasing with the amount of labor employed by firms in the tradable sector. A period of large capital inflows, triggered by a fall in the interest rate, is associated with a consumption boom. While the increase in tradable consumption is financed through foreign borrowing, the increase in non‐tradable consumption requires a shift of productive resources toward the non‐tradable sector at the expenses of the tradable sector. The result is stagnant productivity growth. We show that capital controls can be welfare‐enhancing and can be used as a second‐best policy tool to mitigate the misallocation of resources during an episode of financial resource curse.     

Does Real Exchange Rate Depreciation Boost Capital Accumulation? An Intertemporal Analysis

This paper examines the investment‐enhancing effect of real exchange rate (RER) depreciation in a two‐sector small open economy model where a representative firm in the tradable sector maximises its discounted profit over an infinite planning period. In this framework, a one‐time, permanent, unanticipated depreciation in the RER leads to a higher steady‐state level of capital stock and investment. This consequently increases the optimal investment rate associated with an arbitrary level of capital stock as the saddle path shifts upwards. In the benchmark calibration, the investment‐enhancing effect of RER depreciation is sizeable. One per cent depreciation in the RER leads to an increase of 0.4444 per cent in the rate of capital accumulation.     

Agricultural productivity,the real effective exchange rate,and structural change: Some evidence from Africa

Agriculture is thought to play a number of roles in the early development process. All of these roles involve fostering non‐agricultural development, in particular manufacturing. It is argued in this paper that agriculture plays a role that has hitherto been ignored. Specifically, if agricultural labor productivity increases faster than manufacturing labor productivity, the real effective exchange rate will depreciate. This depreciation of real effective exchange rate occurs because in very poor countries agriculture makes up the dominant share of both GDP and employment. The depreciation also makes it easier for a country to expand the production of tradables relative to nontradables, with manufacturing being the main tradable. This proposition, which as agricultural labor productivity increases relative to manufacturing labor productivity the real effective exchange rate depreciates, is tested using data drawn from 10 sub‐Saharan African countries.     

Understanding the Effect of Productivity Changes on International Relative Prices: The Role of News Shocks

The US real exchange rate and terms of trade have been found to appreciate when US labour productivity increases relative to the rest of the world. This finding is at odds with predictions from standard international macroeconomic models. In this paper, we find that incorporating news shocks to total factor productivity (TFP) in an otherwise standard open‐economy sticky‐price dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) model with variable capital utilization can help the model replicate the above empirical finding. Labour productivity increases in our model after a positive news shock to TFP because of an increase in capital utilization. Under some plausible calibrations, the wealth effect of good news about future productivity can increase domestic demand strongly and induce an increase in home goods prices relative to foreign goods prices.     

Real exchange rate fluctuations,wage stickiness and tradability

When we classify factors of production by their tradability, the relative wage of nontraded labour influences the real exchange rate through the relative cost of distribution services. We confirm this prediction using monthly data on the sector‐level US–Canada real exchange rate and the relative wage of service‐producing labour. The relative wage accounts for 40% of the variability of the real exchange rate at a one‐month horizon. Furthermore, when we use the effective nontraded labour content to classify goods into nontraded and traded ones, the variability of the price of the nontraded‐goods basket accounts for more than half of the variability of the real exchange rate.