A 'pricing-to-market' model with unobserved variables: explaining New Zealand's import prices

A model of ‘pricing-to-market’ (PTM) behaviour in import prices is developed for a small open economy to allow for two measurement problems: (i) that neither the marginal production cost of imported goods nor their corresponding (foreign-currency) export price are observable by the econometrician; (ii) that PTM behaviour, if it exists, alters the relationship between foreign countries' export price indices for total exports and the true, unobservable price index. The analysis shows that variations in the measured markup on import prices depends on the degree to which domestic demand is synchronized with world demand, whether bilateral exchange rate movements are due to domestic or foreign factors, and on the degree to which PTM behaviour differs from such behaviour in other countries. Equations estimated for the price of New Zealand (NZ) imports from the US strongly supports the model, and finds that the degree of PTM by US exporters in response to price and exchange rate movements is substantially greater in NZ than the average for other countries. However, the degree of PTM in NZ in response to excess demand is similar to that of other countries.     

Causal relationship between apparel exports and macroeconomic factors

Apparel exports make a significant contribution to economic growth in major apparel exporting economies such as Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Vietnam. This study aims to investigate the causal relationship between apparel export growth and its determinants such as GDP growth, infrastructure, financial development, foreign direct investment (FDI) and labour productivity using panel data from 11 major apparel exporting countries for the period 1996 to 2013. The results confirm a long-run equilibrium association among the variables and reveal that GDP growth, infrastructure, financial development, FDI, and labour productivity have a significant positive influence on apparel export growth. Furthermore, the heterogeneous panel non-causality test results suggest that GDP growth, infrastructure and labour productivity contribute to apparel export growth in the short-run. These findings have several policy implications for the governments of the countries under study.     

Foreign Exchange Accumulation and the Entrapment of Chinese Monetary Power: Towards a Balanced Growth Regime?

This article criticises the notion that China's foreign exchange reserves have strengthened its monetary power. While some scholars have argued that China's international monetary influence has been ‘entrapped’ by the domestic interests of its export sector, a one-sided focus on the export sector fails to identify the significant constraints on its macroeconomic autonomy. This article proposes an extension of the concept of entrapment that draws attention to the key role of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and their domestic fixed-asset investment in its growth regime: China's external monetary dependency – which is understood as both export dependency and the need to maintain foreign exchange accumulation – has been caused by a disparity between fixed-asset investment and private consumption that reflects a redistribution of income from the household sector to the SOE sector. In particular, I expose the SOE sector's rising interests in foreign exchange accumulation by uncovering a mutually reinforcing dynamic between China's external monetary dependence and the financial repression of its banking system. By entrenching an investment-led growth regime that provides key benefits the SOE sector, this dynamic is found to have seriously constrained the macroeconomic policy autonomy of Chinese authorities to rebalance growth away from investments and exports towards private consumption.     

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 engine of growth or its handmaiden?

This paper presents an analysis of time-series data for the countries in the Summers-Heston (1991) data set, in an attempt to ascertain the evidence for or against the export-led growth hypothesis. We find that standard methods of detecting export-led growth using Granger-causality tests may give misleading results if imports are not included in the system being analyzed. For this reason, our main statistical tool is the measure of conditional linear feedback developed by Geweke (1984), which allows us to examine the relationship between export growth and income growth while controlling for the growth of imports. These measures have two additional features which make them attractive for our work. First, they go beyond meredetection of evidence for export-led growth, to provide a measurement of itsstrength. Second, they enable us to determine the temporal pattern of the response of income to exports. In some cases export-led growth is a long-run phenomenon, in the sense that export promotion strategies adopted today have their strongest effect after eight to 16 years. In other cases the opposite is true; exports have their greatest influence in the short run (less than four years). We find modest support for the export-led growth hypothesis, if “support” is taken to mean a unidirectional causal ordering. Conditional on import growth, we find a causal ordering from export growth to income growth in 30 of the 126 countries analyzed; 25 have the reverse ordering. Using a weaker notion of “support”—stronger conditional feedback from exports to income than vice versa, 65 of the 126 countries support the export-led growth hypothesis, although the difference in strength is small. Finally, we find that for the “Asian Tiger” countries of the Pacific Rim, the relationship between export growth and output growth becomes clearer when conditioned on human capital and investment growth as well as import growth.     

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.     

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.     

Does Latin America Have More to Gain From Exchange Rate Liberalization than Sub-Saharan Africa?

An examination of the relationship between exchange rate liberalization and economic growth in selected Latin American and Sub-Saharan African countries reveals evidence of a short-run causal relationship between the two variables in both Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa. Within each region, exchange rate liberalization causes growth in some countries while others exhibit reverse causality running from growth to exchange rate leads to increased growth and growth induces exchange rate liberalization in most Latin American countries, in the majority of Sub-Saharan African countries studied, exchange rate liberalization reduces growth while growth causes distortions in the exchange rate. Market imperfections, expansionary fiscal and monetary policies under a fixed exchange rate regime, and poor terms of trade are cited as possible explanations for the findings for Sub-Saharan Africa. [F, O]     

COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF EXCHANGE RATE APPRECIATION AND AGGREGATE ECONOMIC ACTIVITY: THEORY AND EVIDENCE FROM MIDDLE EASTERN COUNTRIES

The paper examines the effects of exchange rate depreciation on real output and price in a sample of 11 developing countries in the Middle East. The theoretical model decomposes movements in the exchange rate into anticipated and unanticipated components. Unanticipated currency fluctuations determine aggregate demand through exports, imports, and the demand for domestic currency, and determine aggregate supply through the cost of imported intermediate goods. The evidence indicates that the supply channel attributed to anticipated exchange rate appreciation results in limited effects on output growth and price inflation. Consistent with theory's predictions, unanticipated appreciation of the exchange rate appears more significant with varying effects on output growth and price inflation across developing countries.     

Fishing effort validation and substitution possibilities among components: the case study of the VIII division European anchovy fishery

This paper re-examines the export-led growth hypothesis using provincial data. Unlike other studies that concentrate on country-level data, this study investigates the validity of the hypothesis for four largest provinces in Korea: Seoul, Kyunggee, Kyungnam, and Pusan. The causal implication of the export-led growth hypothesis is generally supported for all provinces in the sample. The framework of analysis is two- and four-variable autoregressive models that include provincial exports, provincial output, terms of trade, and national output shocks. Granger causal orderings from exports to output growth are generally supported in bivariate causal models. In multivariate models, variance decompositions and impulse response functions further indicate that export growth has a significant impact on output growth for all provinces although a feedback effect from output to export growth appears in Seoul and the Kyungnam province.     

Models of export instability and empirical tests for less-developed countries

Alternative models are developed in which export earnings instability is generated by domestic supply, domestic demand or foreign demand fluctuations. Their relative merits over the 1957–1972 period are examined through multiple regression analysis for a sample of 50 LDCs, with breakdown into sub-samples based on the type of commodity exported and the nature of foreign markets. The results suggest that export instability originates mainly from foreign sources - especially variations of market shares in foreign markets and commodity groups. However, domestic supply and demand fluctuations are the dominant factors for countries highly-dependent on food exports. Geographic concentration is an important factor for countries dependent on food exports and developed-country markets.     

Scale economies,cost complementarities and technical progress in Indian banking: evidence from fourier flexible functional form1

The paper analyses the relations between foreign policy and export performance. The paper deals with exports of selected European countries and the USA to Middle Eastern countries including Israel. Cointegration analysis is used to identify common stochastic trends in export series. A long-term relationship implies no significant influence of foreign policy differences on trade performance. According to the Johansen tests applied to bivariate and multivariate models, German, Austrian, Dutch and EU exports to Israel are cointegrated with the US exports, while Swiss exports are never cointegrated with the exports of these countries. This result confirms the importance of foreign policy in trade performance.     

The demand for money and the real exchange rate misalignments in emerging European countries: A nonlinear approach

This paper investigates the extent to which domestic and foreign money balances in emerging European countries are influenced by foreign exchange considerations. A well-specified and stable relationship between real money demand and the exchange rate can be perceived as an important part of a successful monetary policy. This study examines the long-run determinants of real exchange rates (RERs) associated with the behavioral equilibrium exchange rate (BEER) approach and identifies currency misalignments in these countries. The misalignment is later used to test the nonlinear behavior of the demand for money. The results indicate that the RER misalignments have a significant impact on domestic money demand. When the currencies are overvalued, there is a reduction in domestic money demand, and when they are undervalued, there is an increase in domestic money demand. Furthermore, it can be concluded that overvaluation causes an increase in foreign money demand indicating a shift of preference from domestic to foreign currency.     

当前中国出口退税率调整对出口额的影响研究

随着全球经济的复苏,今年第一季度中国对外贸易恢复性增长势头良好。以中国为应对2008年金融危机造成的出口下滑,国家再度提高出口退税率作为研究背景。通过对出口退税率和出口额关系进行回归分析,得出出口退税率对出口额影响显著,以评价出口退税政策的客观效果。然而,强化提高劳动密集型产业的退税率,不利于中国出口产业结构的调整,而且退税率频繁变动,会干扰企业正常的经营决策。进而提出建立合理的、较为稳定的退税制度,促进中国经济增长方式转变和产业结构的升级,实现党中央可持续性发展的战略方针。     

A Band Spectral Analysis of Exports and Economic Growth in the United States

This paper examines the role of exports in aggregate economic growth in the United States using band spectral regression. The findings reveal a predictable relationship between long-run frequency components of real export growth and real GDP growth over the post-Bretton Woods period of flexible exchange rates. The study fails to uncover a significant relationship between long-run frequency components of the terms of trade and real output. Overall, the findings support the export-led growth hypothesis, and dismiss long-run movements in the terms of trade as an important determinant of real output growth.     

Exchange rate depreciation and exports: the case of Singapore revisited

This article revisits the weak relationship between exchange rate depreciation and exports for Singapore, using a bivariate generalized autoregressive conditional heteroscedasticity in mean model that simultaneously estimates time-varying risk. The evidence shows that depreciation does not significantly improve exports, but that exchange rate risk significantly impedes exports. In sum, Singaporean policy makers can better promote export growth by stabilizing the exchange rate rather than generating its depreciation.     

Growth and export expansion in developing countries: Some empirical evidence

This paper analyzes the empirical relationship between economic growth and export expansion in developing countries as observed through an intercountry cross-section. Employing data from 55 middle income developing countries for the period 1960–1977, bivariate tests revealed significant positive associations between growth and various other economic variables including the growth of manufacturing output, investment, total exports, and manufacturing exports. A production function model was also specified and estimated with the cross-sectional data. The results indicated that export performance was important, along with capital formation, in explaining the intercountry variance in GDP growth rates during the 1960–1977 period.     

Exchange Rate Volatility and Exports: Regional Differences between Developing and Industrialized Countries

This study uses a large panel of industrialized and developing countries to investigate the link between exchange rate volatility and exports. Although the empirical literature on this relationship is extensive, a clear consensus about its nature and importance is yet to emerge. Using fixed- and random-effects models to capture cross-country differences, pooled export equations are estimated for the entire panel and various subsets of countries. The results, which are robust across different volatility measures, indicate that negative effects exist for LDC exports, especially from Latin America and Africa, but not for exports from Asian LDCs or industrialized countries.     

Exports and economic growth in industrialized countries

The prima-facie causal relationships between growth, exports and factor inputs (capital and labour) are investigated in five industrialized countries (germany, Itlay, Japan, United Kingdom and United States) over the period 1960–87 by analysing a four-variable vector autoregressive (VAR) model for each country. Our results indicate that Germany and Japan experienced export-led growth. Reverse causality between exports and growth is found in the case of the US and UK, while to causal relationship between exports and output is found for Itlay.     

Are exports a monotonic function of exchange rate volatility? Evidence from disaggregated pork exports

Abstract.  Production and marketing lags in agri-food supply chains often force agricultural producers and food processors to commit to output targets before prices and exchange rates are realized. A theoretical model illustrates how the processor's degree of risk aversion and domestic sales may cause the relationship between volatility of the exchange rate and exports to be non-monotonic. The relationship between exchange rate volatility and Quebec pork exports to the United States and Japan is investigated using linear and non-linear estimation methods. The results support the hypothesis that the relationship between exports and volatility is non-monotonic.