A nonlinear approach to the U.S.–Australia commodity trade and the J‐curve: Evidence from 123 industries

The application of nonlinear models and asymmetric analysis have recently proven to yield results that are superior to those of the linear and symmetric analysis. However, the new approaches in testing the J‐curve between Australia and the rest of the world or between Australia and her trading partners such as the United States did not yield any significant outcomes. Suspecting that those results suffer from aggregation bias, we apply new methods to the trade flows of 123 industries that trade between the United States and Australia and give evidence of an asymmetric J‐curve in 28 industries. Furthermore, we find short‐run asymmetric effects of exchange rate changes on the trade balance of almost all studies, short‐run impact asymmetric effects in 27 industries and significant long‐run asymmetric effects in 56 industries. Our findings are industry‐specific.     

THE J CURVE: CHINA VERSUS HER TRADING PARTNERS

The short‐run effects of currency depreciation are said to be different from its long‐run effects. In the short run, the trade balance deteriorates and improvement comes after some time; hence, the J‐curve phenomenon. Previous studies that tested the response of the trade balance to exchange rate changes in China employed aggregate trade data and provided mixed results. Indeed, most of them concluded that real depreciation has no long‐run impact on the Chinese trade balance. In this paper, we disaggregate the data by country and using recent advances in time series modelling estimate a trade balance model between China and her 13 major trading partners. We show that real depreciation of the Chinese currency has a favourable impact on her trade balance with a few partners, especially the USA. Not much support is found for the J‐curve hypothesis.     

THE J‐CURVE AT THE INDUSTRY LEVEL: EVIDENCE FROM TRADE BETWEEN THE US AND AUSTRALIA*

Previous studies that tested the J‐curve phenomenon for Australia used trade data either between Australia and the rest of the world or between Australia and its trading partners on a bilateral basis. They were unable to find support for the J‐curve in the short run nor any significant relation between the trade balance and the exchange rate in the long run. In this paper we disaggregate the data between Australia and its second largest trading partner, the US, and consider the trade between 108 industries. Using annual data over the 1962–2003 period and bounds testing approach to cointegration and error‐correction modelling, we are able to discover short‐run effects of currency depreciation on the trade balance in 64 industries. The long‐run and positive effects were only evidenced in 35 cases, supporting the J‐curve.     

Asymmetric effect of exchange rate volatility on India's cross‐border trade: Evidence from global financial crisis and multiple threshold nonlinear autoregressive distributed lag model

This paper examines the asymmetric effect of exchange rate volatility on India's cross‐border trade with its major trading partners: Japan, Germany, the United States, and China. We extend previous studies in two ways. First, we examine whether global financial crisis changes the asymmetric effect of exchange rate volatility on India's cross‐border trade. Next, we divide exchange rate volatility into quintiles and examine the effect of each quintile on cross‐border trade by using the multiple threshold nonlinear autoregressive distributed lag (MTNARDL) model. Our findings from standard nonlinear ARDL (NARDL) indicate that the asymmetric relationship between exchange rate volatility and cross‐border trade changes as a result of global financial crisis. In addition, findings from MTNARDL indicate that in short‐run, exchange rate volatility symmetrically affects India's cross‐border trade with all sample countries whereas in long‐run it asymmetrically affects cross‐border trade. Overall, these findings are very important for policy implications and open a new dimension to exchange rate volatility and trade flows.     

Impact of exchange rate uncertainty on commodity trade between US and Sweden

Previous studies that investigated the effects of exchange rate uncertainty on the trade flows of Sweden employed aggregate trade data either between Sweden and the rest of the world or at bilateral level between Sweden and her major trading partners. In this article, we disaggregate the trade data and employ the import and export data from 87 industries that trade between Sweden and the US. We find that exchange rate volatility has significant short-run effects on the trade flows between the two countries in almost two-third of the industries. However, the short-run effects are translated into the long-run effects in one-third of the cases. Furthermore, the real depreciation of krona against the dollar was found to have favourable effects on the overall trade balance between the two countries.     

Commodity trade between Pakistan and the US: is there evidence of the J-curve?

A few studies that have attempted to estimate the short-run (J-curve) and long-run impact of exchange rate depreciation on Pakistan’s trade balance are either based on aggregate trade data between Pakistan and the rest of the world or between Pakistan and her bilateral trading partners. The findings are mixed at best. Considering the trade balance between Pakistan and the US, as one of its major partners, no significant effects have been discovered. Suspecting that the trade flows between the two countries could suffer from another aggregation bias, we disaggregate their trade flows by commodity and consider the trade balance of 45 industries that trade between the two countries. We find significant short-run effects of currency depreciation on the trade balance of 17 industries. The short-run effects last into the long run in 15 cases. The largest industry that account for more than 10% of the trade seems to benefit from real depreciation in the long run.     

Impact of exchange rate volatility on commodity trade between US and Hong Kong

The impact of exchange rate uncertainty on trade flows is still the center of attention in international economics. A few studies that have looked at this effect in Hong Kong have used either aggregate data between Hong Kong and the rest of the world or between Hong Kong and several of her major trading partners. They have been unable to locate any significant effect. Suspecting that existing studies could suffer from aggregation bias, we concentrate on the trade between Hong Kong and the US and disaggregate their trade flows further by commodity. Out of 140 Hong Kong importing industries and 104 exporting industries considered, we find short-run effects in the majority of the industries. The short-run effects translated into the long run in 81 of Hong Kong import industries and 51 of her export industries, a finding that contradicts previous research.     

The J-curve: evidence from commodity trade between UK and China

China is often accused of manipulating its currency to gain international competitiveness. Previous studies have tried to address this issue by investigating the impact of yuan depreciation on China’s trade balance. Not only have they failed to establish the link between the Chinese exchange rate and its trade balance with the rest of the world but also between China and her major trading partners. In this article, we consider the China–UK trade balance and disaggregate their trade flows by commodity. Out of the 47 industries considered, we show that the real depreciation has favourable short-run effects in most industries. However, the short-run effects last into the long run only in seven cases.     

Bilateral J-curve between the UK vis-à-vis her major trading partners

Currency depreciation is said to worsen the trade balance first before resulting in an improvement, yielding a short-run pattern labelled the J-curve phenomenon. While early studies tested the J-curve by using aggregate trade data, a few recent studies have employed bilateral data, mostly between the US and her major trading partners. In this paper we extend the literature by considering the experience of the UK. We test the phenomenon between the UK and her twenty major trading partners by employing data over 1973Q1–2001Q3 period. In most instances, we find no support for the J-curve in the short-run. In the long run, only in five cases has the exchange rate had significant impact on the bilateral trade balance.     

The Bilateral J‐Curve in Australia: A Nonlinear Reappraisal

Since the introduction of error‐correction and cointegration techniques, the J‐curve effect implies an initial short‐run deterioration of the trade balance, followed by improvement later due to currency devaluation. In a previous study of Australia’s bilateral trade, with each of her 23 partners, using the linear Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) approach we found the J‐curve effect in the model with the United Kingdom only. However, after incorporating the ARDL model that allows for nonlinear adjustment of exchange rate changes, we found the effect on four more partners – all asymmetrically. Furthermore, we document short‐run asymmetry in exchange rate changes in almost all models; short‐run adjustment asymmetry, and impact‐asymmetry in almost half of the models.     

US–Indonesia trade at commodity level and the role of the exchange rate

Previous studies that assessed the impact of currency depreciation on inpayments and outpayments of Indonesia with her major trading partners did not find much significant results, especially in the trade with the United States. We wonder whether insignificant link between the real rupiah-dollar rate and Indonesia’s inpayments and outpayments with the United States is due to aggregation bias. To answer this question, we disaggregate the trade flows between the two countries by commodity and consider the sensitivity of inpayments of 108 US exporting industries and outpayments of 32 US importing industries from Indonesia. We find that most industries respond to exchange rate changes in the short run. In the long run, however, 32 inpayments schedule and 17 outpayments schedule are significantly affected. A 1% real depreciation of the dollar was found to improve US trade balance by 1.8%.     

Impact of exchange-rate variability on commodity trade between U.S. and Germany

Previous studies that looked at the impact of exchange rate volatility on trade flows used aggregate trade data between one country and rest of the world or between two countries. More recent studies, however, have expanded the literature by using a highly disaggregated commodity level data between two countries. In this paper we consider the sensitivity of 131 industries that trade between U.S. and Germany. We find that exports and imports of a majority of the industries react to the real dollar–euro volatility in the short run. The short-run effects, however, last into the long run only in almost 50 % of the industries. Among these industries, while almost all U.S. exporting industries are affected favorably by exchange rate volatility, a majority of the U.S. importing industries are affected adversely.     

An investigation of the effects of exchange rate volatility on exports in East Asia

This study investigates the effects of the exchange rate volatility on the export flows of Indonesia, Malaysia, Republic of Korea, Singapore, Thailand, and the Philippines during 1974–2011. Towards this goal a trade weighted real effective (rather than the bilateral) exchange rate and three different measures of volatility, i.e. obtained from an ARCH model, a GARCH model and a moving-average standard deviation measure are used in this study. Specifically, the export flows between six Asian countries and the rest of the world are investigated rather than focusing on trade with only one country. Our findings reveal that the exchange rate volatility has a significant impact on export flows in the short run as well as in the long run for all the countries in the sample. The impact in the long run is predominantly negative with the exception of Singapore, but in the short run the impact varies across countries. Moreover, our results are robust to the alternative measures of volatility used and most of the findings in the long run and short run are also robust to the crisis period.     

Is Devaluation Working? Evidence from India in Phase of Economic Liberalization

Using the data from a developing country like India, we offer an empirical analysis to examine the relationship between devaluation of the Rupee and the real trade balance with her major trading partners since the liberalization process that began in July 1991. Exploiting the recent advances in panel-data time-series econometrics, we document that devaluation may not be effective in improving trade balance in the long run. Success may follow only if the policymakers view devaluation as a short run tool to improve the trade balance. Nominal devaluation is unable to alter real exchange rates substantially and hence, the inflationary impact of devaluation is large in India.

     

Does exchange-rate uncertainty matter in the Malaysia–E.U. bilateral trade? An industry level investigation

Due to ambiguity in the past literature, researchers have examined exchange rate volatility effect on trade using disaggregated data in recent years. Previous research has focused more on aggregated data having aggregation bias which has led to unnecessarily over-generalized findings. This study investigates the impact of exchange rate volatility on the Malaysian bilateral trade flows with European Union using industry level data. Our empirical findings, based on auto-regressive distributed lag framework, suggest that many import and export industries experience exchange rate volatility influence in the short run, while a very small number of industries show this effect in the long run. Moreover, the adverse impact of financial crisis (2007–2008) is more prevalent on import industries compared to export industries.     

The bilateral J‐curve: Canada versus her 20 trading partners

There is a common belief that currency depreciation worsens the trade balance in the short run and improves it in the long run resulting in the so called J‐curve phenomenon. Early studies employed aggregate data and provided mixed results. Recent studies, however, have employed disaggregated data to remove any aggregation bias from their analysis. In this article we consider the Canadian experience and test the phenomenon between Canada and her 20 major trading partners. Using quarterly data and the bounds testing approach to cointegration, and error‐correction modelling we were able to provide support for the J‐curve in 11 out of 20 cases.     

Exchange rate volatility–economic growth nexus in Uganda

The global financial crisis has disrupted trade and capital flows in most developing economies, resulting in an increased volatility of exchange rates. We develop an autoregressive distributed lag model to investigate the effect of exchange rate volatility on economic growth in Uganda. Using data spanning the period 1960–2011, we find that exchange rate volatility positively affects economic growth in Uganda in both the short run and the long run. However, in the short run, political instability negatively moderates the exchange rate volatility–economic growth nexus. These results are robust to alternative specifications of the economic growth model.     

Stock market interdependence between Australia and its trading partners: does trade intensity matter?

We investigate the extent and manner of stock market interdependence between Australia and its trading partners and examine whether this is affected by trade intensity. Based on trade intensity, we classify Australia’s trading partners into major, medium and minor partners. We hypothesize that markets with greater (lower) trade intensity will be more (less) interdependent with Australia. We perform correlation (unconditional and conditional) analyses between Australia and its trading partners. Our results indicate that most of the markets that are highly correlated with Australia are its major trading partners. We conduct panel regression analysis to investigate whether trade intensity has any impact on the stock market correlations between Australia and its trading partners. The results show that trade intensity significantly and positively affect the correlations of Australia with its major trading partners. Thus, the results confirm our hypothesis that trade intensity drives stock market interdependence between Australia and its trading partners.     

Exchange rate volatility and US commodity trade with the rest of the world

Exchange rate volatility is argued to affect the trade flows negatively and positively. Indeed, empirical studies that have addressed the issue have supported both effects. These studies have used aggregate trade flows data either between one country and the rest of the world or between two countries at the bilateral level. Studies that have disaggregated trade data by industry are rare. Thus, we extend the literature by looking at the experiences of 66 American industries that trade with the rest of the world using monthly data. In most cases, trade flows are not affected by GARCH‐based volatility of the real effective exchange rate of the dollar.     

基于中国主要贸易伙伴双边数据的贸易收支弹性研究

有别于传统的总量分析,利用双边贸易收支模型考量人民币汇率波动与双边贸易收支的关系,能更深刻地揭示汇率波动与我国贸易收支的关系.研究发现,无论是在短期还是在长期,对不同国家而言,不仅双边汇率对双边贸易收支的弹性系数大小不一样,而且双边汇率的波动对贸易收支的影响方向也并不一致,这也说明了采用双边汇率和双边贸易收支样本比总量样本更具有针对性和实践意义.