The persistence in real exchange rate: Evidence from East Asian countries

In this article, we examine the degree of persistence in monthly real exchange rate of six East Asian countries in relation to their two major trading partners, the United States and Japan, to study the validity of PPP for the 1976:01–2009:03 period. To investigate the persistency in real exchange rate series, we use sum of the autoregressive (AR) coefficients and the confidence interval for it using grid-bootstrap procedure recently developed by Hansen (1999). We have two findings: first, we find evidence for high persistency in real exchange rate in terms of the Japanese yen for five countries and for four countries in terms of the US dollar the for the full and pre-crisis sample periods. Second, for the post-crisis period, the presence of low persistency in real exchange rate supports PPP for three countries in terms of the Japanese yen and five countries in terms of the US dollar. These findings indicate that real exchange rate series of five East Asian countries are mean-revert based on their exchange rate policies and East Asian countries can form a currency union.     

Removal of farm subsidies in a regional economy: a computable general equilibrium analysis

There are a number of studies that examine the purchasing power parity (PPP) hypothesis. The empirical findings from the extant literature for the PPP hypothesis are mixed. This article applies univariate and panel Lagrange Multiplier (LM) unit root tests with one and two structural breaks to real exchange rates for 15 Asian countries. The univariate LM unit root tests find evidence of PPP for two-thirds of the sample. The results from the panel LM unit root test support long-run PPP for the Asian countries in the sample. The results from the LM panel unit root tests differ from those of existing panel unit root tests of PPP for Asian countries that have not allowed for the existence of structural breaks.     

Purchasing power parity vs. uncovered interest rate parity for NAFTA countries: The value of incorporating time-varying parameter model

In 1994, the United States, Canada, and Mexico signed the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) to strengthen economic cooperation. To examine the effects of the NAFTA, this study revisits Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) for NAFTA countries by applying a time-varying cointegration model. Under the time-varying assumption, it improves the explanatory power of reality via the model specification test. Given that, the validity of PPP for NAFTA countries varies over time. Especially, the PPP elasticity based on the consumer price index (CPI) is more volatile than the producer price index (PPI) -based. Thus, the stabilization policy of the consumption sector must be a high priority over the production sector. Moreover, the validity of the Uncovered Interest Rate Parity (UIRP) is examined by the time-varying cointegration model. The aim is to compare the results of the PPP and UIRP. This suggests that the PPP is more useful than the UIRP in evaluating the movement of the exchange rate in the long-run.     

Asymmetry dynamics in real exchange rates: New results on East Asian currencies

This paper provides new evidence on the purchasing power parity (PPP) hypothesis in six East Asian countries. Based on nonlinear unit root tests, we discovered that the results are broadly consistent with the fact that real exchange rates (RERs) follow a nonlinear mean reversion process. We presented new evidence that the adjustment towards the PPP parity is asymmetric (LSTAR process) above and below the equilibrium value in all but one case — the Malaysian ringgit (MYR). The empirical results suggest that it is important that the conventional tests of PPP be amended to take account of asymmetries in the adjustment process in RERs.     

PPP test for Asian countries and regions: new evidence from a wild bootstrap AESTAR test

This article investigates the effects of time-varying variance on the asymmetric exponential smooth transition autoregressive (AESTAR) unit root test. We propose a wild bootstrap-based implementation of the test, which is asymptotically valid under time-varying variance. We apply our proposed method to test the Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) hypothesis for Asian countries and regions, and find that our proposed test provides stronger evidence against the PPP hypothesis than the conventional AESTAR test.     

Purchasing power parity for fifteen Latin American countries: Stationary test with a Fourier function

This study applies a stationary test with a Fourier function, proposed by Becker et al. (2006), to test the validity of long-run purchasing power parity (PPP) in fifteen Latin American countries over the period of December 1994 to February 2010. The empirical results from the univariate unit root tests indicate that PPP does not hold for these fifteen countries under study. However, a stationary test with a Fourier function indicates that PPP is valid for four of these 15 Latin American countries and they are Brazil, Chile, Ecuador and Uruguay. These results have important policy implications for these fifteen Latin American countries under study.     

Purchasing power parity for 15 Latin American countries: Panel SURKSS test with a Fourier function

This study applies Panel SURKSS test with a Fourier function to investigate the properties of long-run purchasing power parity (PPP) in fifteen Latin American countries over the period of December 1994 to February 2010. The empirical results from the univariate unit root and panel-based unit root tests indicate that PPP does not hold for these fifteen countries under study. However, results from the Panel SURKSS test with a Fourier function indicate that PPP is valid for these fifteen countries, with the exception of Honduras. Our results highlight the importance of incorporating both nonlinearities and structural breaks when testing the validity of long-run PPP. These results have important policy implications for these fifteen Latin American countries under study.     

Purchasing power parity and country characteristics: Evidence from panel data tests

We examine long-run purchasing power parity (PPP) using panel data methods to test for unit roots in US dollar real exchange rates of 84 countries. We find stronger evidence of PPP in countries more open to trade, closer to the United States, with lower inflation and moderate nominal exchange rate volatility, and with similar economic growth rates as the United States. We also show that PPP holds for panels of European and Latin American countries, but not for African and Asian countries. Our findings demonstrate that country characteristics can help explain both adherence to and deviations from long-run PPP.     

Testing purchasing power parity in a multivariate cointegrating framework

This paper examines a bilateral PPP(Purchasing power parity) relationship between Australia and the 11 major trading countries by means of two alternative econometric techniques-a multivariate cointegrating framework and a band-spectral regression. It is acknowledged that there is no strong evidence that classical PPP holds in all cases. However, the generalized version of PPP holds in all cases, and provides a better explanation of the long-run relations between exchange rates and relative prices.The use of different price indices, i.e CPI and WPI,lead to different estimates and hence different policy implications.     

Testing a theoretical model of mortgage demand on UK data

This study explores whether the long-run purchasing power parity (PPP) hypothesis holds for selected real exchange rates from Turkish economy during the period 1982M1–2003M12. In addition to conventional unit root tests, five different unit root test procedures have been applied including efficient point-optimal tests, extended M tests and GLS-detrended variants of DF tests, to four monthly real exchange rate series defined in terms of both producer and consumer price indices. The countries analysed are the USA, the UK, Germany and Italy which are major trade partners of Turkey. Mixed evidence is found for the long-run PPP hypothesis when real exchange rate is defined in terms of German DM and Italian Lira. However, the empirical analysis reveals that the PPP hypothesis holds strongly in the long-run for the UK£ and US$ based real exchange rates series using either PPI or CPI. In corroboration with other studies in the literature, the bias correlated half-life estimates suggest relatively faster speeds of adjustment supporting the view that the deviations from the PPP rate dissipate rather quickly for relatively high inflation countries.     

Panel asymmetric nonlinear unit root test and PPP in Africa

This study revisits purchasing power parity (PPP) theory for 20 African countries using panel asymmetric nonlinear unit root test proposed by Emirmahmutoglu and Omay (2014), through the sequential panel selection method of Chortareas and Kapetanios (2009). While standard panel unit root tests fail to support the PPP, the empirical results from panel asymmetric nonlinear unit root test do support the PPP. However, additional tests reveal that support in all 20 African countries is mostly due to stationarity of the real effective exchange rates of Ghana and Rwanda where the adjustment process towards equilibrium is nonlinear and asymmetric.     

ARE ASIA‐PACIFIC REAL EXCHANGE RATES STATIONARY? A REGIME‐SWITCHING PERSPECTIVE

This paper tests for long‐run purchasing power (PPP) among nine Asia‐Pacific countries. Non‐stationarity of the real exchange rate is tested within a Markov regime‐switching framework. Two new concepts of PPP are defined that allow for real exchange behaviour to switch between stationary and non‐stationary regimes (partial PPP) or between stationary regimes of differing degrees of persistence (varied PPP). The results indicate that each country is characterized by at least one stationary regime. Indeed, five countries are characterized by two such regimes. Further analysis indicates that the Asian crisis of 1997 gave mixed impetus to the achievement of long‐run PPP.     

FINANCIAL INTEGRATION IN EAST ASIAN EQUITY MARKETS

Abstract.  This paper examines the degree of financial integration that exists in East Asian equity markets using the International Capital Asset Pricing Model methodology. We employ three market portfolios to test for integration: the weighted average equity index of all sample countries, the Japanese market index and the US market index. The study shows that the level of financial efficiency and the integration of sample countries is high and has improved significantly during 1991 to 2005, and they are more financially integrated within the region and with the Asian leading market (Japan) than with the world leading market (the USA).     

Nonlinear Exchange Rate Adjustment in the Enlarged Eurozone: Evidence and Implications for Candidate Countries

This paper sheds light on the importance of the validity of PPP hypothesis for the accessing process of the candidate countries towards EMU. The evidence of nonlinear adjustment in real exchange rates suggests the estimation of a nonlinear SETAR model. While linear half‐life estimates are biased upward (five years on average), SETAR half‐life estimates imply a faster reverting process (1.5 years on average). Moreover, we found that TPI‐based real exchange rates are more appropriate than CPI‐based real exchange rates in testing for PPP hypothesis. For the cluster of EMU countries and for the pre‐EMU period, our nonlinear model confirms stationarity for the majority of the TPI‐based real exchange rates with half‐life estimates less than a year.     

Threshold cointegration and purchasing power parity in the pacific nations

The paper uses a threshold cointegration methodology to explore the properties of long-run purchasing power parity (PPP) in the Pacific nations. Using Japan and the USA as base countries, it is shown that long-run PPP holds for most Asian countries but that the adjustment mechanism is asymmetric. In contrast to symmetric error-correction models, it is found that asymmetric adjustments of nominal exchange rates play an important role in eliminating deviations from long-run PPP.     

Parity reversion in the Asian real exchange rates: new evidence from the local-persistent model

This article investigates the time-series properties of 13 Asian real exchange rates (RERs) vis-à-vis the US dollar. The half-life point estimates drawn from the local-persistent model are all less than 2 years, with a finite upper bound. There is no evidence to indicate that the Asian financial crisis has altered the speed of the purchasing power parity (PPP) adjustments. We find that the persistence of RERs over the last three decades remains unchanged in majority of the cases. Given the fairly rapid speed of adjustments and their corresponding confidence intervals, we conclude that the PPP puzzle does not exist in these countries.     

An empirical analysis on the law of purchasing power parity and international economic deepening

This article empirically investigates the effect of international trade on the deviation of Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) law and on the international economic deepening in four developed countries (Japan, USA, UK and France), and three Asian developing ones (South Korea, Singapore and Malaysia), using International Financial Statistics (IFS) data issued by International Monetary Fund (IMF). Our results show that in some developed countries the imbalance effect of balance of payments is significant for both international deepening and deviation from PPP, and in some developing countries the volume effect of balance of payments is significant for international deepening.     

Revisiting purchasing power parity for African countries: with nonlinear panel unit-root tests

This study applies Panel Seemingly Unrelated Regressions (SUR) Kapetanios et al. (Kapetanios–Shin–Snell (KSS), SURKSS) tests, proposed by Wu and Lee (2009), to investigate the properties of long-run Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) in 15 African countries. The empirical results from the univariate unit root and panel based unit root tests indicate that PPP does not hold for these 15 countries under study. However, Panel SURKSS tests indicate that PPP is valid for four of these 15 countries. These results have important policy implications for these 15 African countries under study.     

The human capital and economic growth nexus: in East and South Asia

This study adopts a disaggregated regional focus to test for the human capital (HC)-growth nexus in selected nine Asian countries. It utilizes the Empirical Bayesian methodology which addresses not only the heterogeneity issue but it also utilizes the common structural priors of regional countries to yield ‘informationally’ efficient estimates of the impact of HC on the stock and levels of GDP. Various measures of HC are utilized to determine which of these produces a better explanation of economic growth in the two Asian regions. The study finds that primary and secondary education was more prominent in explaining the fluctuations of economic growth in East Asia, whereas tertiary and vocational education showed positive effects on economic growth in South Asia. Government expenditures on education were also found to positively affect economic growth in both regions. The results shed new evidence to establish that the differences in growth rates within East and South Asia are associated with differences in educational progression in the regions.     

中国参与ICP的理论基础与实证检验——基于人民币购买力平价理论的协整分析

我国将于2012年通过购买力平价换算GDP参与国际比较项目(ICP),人民币购买力平价在长期内是否成立是我国能否顺利参与这一项目的关键。在中外购买力平价(PPP)实证研究的基础上,选择三变量模型,对1950～2009年间人民币汇率及其中美CPI年度数据进行实证检验。旨在为我国参与ICP提供理论上的支持。