Geographic Spread of Currency Trading: The Renminbi and Other Emerging Market Currencies

This paper studies the ongoing diffusion of renminbi (RMB) trading across the globe, the first of such research of an international currency. It analyses the distribution in offshore RMB trading in 2013 and 2016 using comprehensive data from the Triennial Central Bank Survey of foreign exchange markets. In 2013, Asian centers favored by the policy of RMB internationalization had disproportionate shares in global RMB trading. Over the following three years, RMB trading seemed to converge to the spatial pattern of all currencies, with a half‐life of seven to eight years. The previously most traded emerging market currency, the Mexican peso, shows a similar pattern, although it is converging to the global norm more slowly. Three other emerging market currencies show a qualitatively similar evolution in the geography of their offshore trading. Overall, the RMB's internationalization is tracing an arc from the influence of administrative measures to the working of market forces.     

Renminbi in Ordinary Economies: A Demand‐side Study of Currency Globalization

Most studies of renminbi internationalization focus on the supply side, by examining China's own economic and political conditions. In contrast, this study addresses the demand side of renminbi internationalization, by providing an in‐depth analysis of renminbi use in ordinary foreign economies from both economic and political perspectives, with a particular focus on South Korea, China's next‐door neighbor. The study finds that sustainable indigenous market forces facilitating renminbi use in South Korea remain weak, despite the country's close economic ties with China. This research also shows, however, that the Korean Government has itself recently been able, through its policy measures, to generate new domestic support for greater use of the renminbi. These findings ultimately highlight the significant impact on the internationalization of a currency of the politics in the foreign countries using it.     

Excess returns in the EMS: Do “weak” currencies still exist after the widening of the fluctuation bands?

Excess Returns in the EMS: Do “Weak” Currencies Still Exist after the Widening of the Fluctuation Bands? — The authors analyze the issue of how the different institutional arrangements within the ERM have affected the behaviour of excess returns on DM-denominated assets and contribute to the debate on the future of the EMS. Their approach consists in estimating simple forecasting models for interest differentials, and testing for the presence of significant (negative) mean prediction errors. The comparison between predicted and actual outcome indicates that the new system might be characterized by the virtual disappearance of “weak” currencies, as the widening of the bands has removed the expectations of realignments which resulted in high interest differentials.     

IT MAY BE OUR CURRENCY,BUT IT'S YOUR PROBLEM

The dollar's dominance of international transactions and role as a reserve currency is an exorbitant privilege that is a burden as well as a blessing for the US. It achieved this dominance early in the twentieth century, quite quickly in fact; it may also see that status change equally quickly were the world to move to a multipolar system of currencies. Among the most likely candidates for reserve currencies in such a world are the dollar, the euro, and the Chinese renminbi, Barry Eichengreen explained in his Butlin Lecture earlier in 2011.     

Trade Flows,Exchange Rate Uncertainty,and Financial Depth: Evidence from 28 Emerging Countries

This article investigates the effects of real exchange rate uncertainty on manufactures exports from 28 emerging economies, representing 82% of all developing country manufactures exports, and explores the sources of heterogeneity in the uncertainty effects by controlling for the direction of trade (south‐north or south‐south), and the level of financial development of the exporting country. The empirical results show that for more than half of the countries, the uncertainty effect is unidirectional, either south‐south or south‐north, and the median impact is negative. In addition, while we find that financial development augments trade, exchange rate shocks can negate this effect. Last but not least, trade among developing economies improves export growth under exchange rate shocks.     

New Evidence on Export Price Elasticity from China and Six OECD Countries

This paper provides new evidence on export price elasticities by analyzing the cases of China, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, UK and the USA over the period 1990–2012. Estimates have been made using panel data techniques for non‐stationary data. After demonstrating that long‐run relationships are stable to any structural break, it is found that exports are significantly determined by foreign demand, with long‐run income elasticity significantly higher than unity for China, Japan, Germany, the UK and the USA. Conversely, exports are price inelastic for most of the countries in the sample, in both the long run and the short run. The exception is France, whose export price elasticity is lower (higher) than unity in the short run (long run).     

Foreign investment,corporate governance and performance in the Chinese listed A Share companies

We present a novel lens on the presence and impact of qualified foreign institutional investors (QFII) in top shareholdings of the non-financial domestically listed Chinese ‘A’ share firms. The initial results suggest that the presence of a QFII as a top shareholder in these companies is associated with their better performance, using both Tobin’s Q and ROA as the performance measures. Our models include variables representing corporate governance mechanisms, foreign legal person shares, a proxy for international affiliations and a number of time-variant firm characteristics. Economically, the coefficient of impact on the market measure is the more significant, while the effect of having a QFII in top shareholdings on both performance measures is empirically significant. Previously, studies have often ignored the potential for reverse causality beyond using lagged regressors. This is problematic. Therefore, we follow up with a 2SLS instrumental variables and system GMM model to further mitigate this potential and find the empirical relationship holds. Contrary to earlier work on QFIIs and governance post-implementation of the QFII scheme, the findings from our models suggest that the presence of a QFII top shareholder augments market performance holding equal existing corporate governance mechanisms and other controls.     

Banking in the Shadows: A Comparative Study of China and India

In recent years there has been increasing interest in the rise of shadow banking in China and India. In this paper, we aim to get a better understanding of the differences in trends and investigate the factors leading to the increase of shadow banking in these two major emerging economies. We find that financial exclusion is a common factor leading to the growth of shadow banking in both countries. While financial reform has taken place in India, financially repressive policies still prevail in China. Although several regulatory measures have been adopted in India and China, the size of the shadow banking sector in these two countries remains underestimated. Thus, streamlining and enhancing data collection is a key priority for both nations. We argue that regulation in both countries should be more activity focused (specific field in which a shadow bank is focused on) rather than sector or entity based, and it should be at par with banks. The shadow banks provide last mile connectivity to remote, distant, and ignored segments of the population not serviced by the formal financial sector. As this enhances financial inclusion, a balanced approach is required keeping in view both costs and benefits of the shadow banking system.     

Efficiency of the Banking Industry Structure in Korea*

This paper analyzes whether the efficiency of the Korean banking industry has improved since the bank restructuring in 1997, and whether a bank with high efficiency has a larger market share. This paper uses an efficient structure hypothesis model to examine the relationship between the banks' efficiencies and their profitability. The data envelopment analysis method is applied to measure the efficiency and profitability of the banking industry in order to minimize possible bias due to the inflow of public funds for the bank consolidation. The two‐step Heckman selection method is used to correct for survivorship bias in the model. The derived result indicates that banks with higher efficiencies tend to record higher profit. Moreover, higher pure technological efficiency and scale efficiency have a positive effect on a bank's market share and concentration.     

Immigrant Specificity and the Relationship between Trade and Immigration: Theory and Evidence

Studies routinely document that immigrant employment concentrates in non‐traded goods sectors and that many immigrants have low inter‐sectoral mobility. We consider these observed characteristics of immigrant employment with regard to the question of how immigration affects a nation's pattern of production and trade. We model an economy producing three goods; one is non‐traded. Domestic labor and capital are domestically mobile but internationally immobile. Allowing that some new immigrants will become specific to the non‐traded goods sector, the model indicates that the effects of immigration on output and trade depend importantly on the sectoral pattern of employment of both new and existing immigrants. Empirical investigation in a panel data set of OECD countries supports the model's prediction that immigration raises the output of non‐traded goods. Consistent with the model, we also find that immigration and trade are complements. Given its empirical support, the model's implications for immigration policy are then discussed.     

Law and Finance Revisited: Evidence from African Countries

The law and finance theory essentially states that legal origins are a significant determinant of financial development. The conclusion from the law and finance theory is that countries whose legal traditions derived from British Common Law have better developed financial markets than countries following French Civil Law. This study conducted an empirical investigation of the law and finance theory for African countries. Our empirical results showed that legal origins are insignificant in explaining financial development but rather, legal effectiveness significantly explains cross‐country differences in financial development in Africa. We concluded that the law and finance theory does not hold in African countries.     

FDI and the Export Performance of Chinese Indigenous Firms: a Regional Approach

The primary purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) on the export performance of Chinese indigenous firms. A panel data analysis is employed using data across 29 provinces over the 1985–99 period. Owing to the exceptionally uneven distribution of FDI, the analysis compares the impact of FDI on all provincial exports and exports of indigenous firms over the three macro-regions of China. While the findings of the empirical analysis should be viewed with caution, they do show that FDI has less influence on the export performance of indigenous firms than on all firms (foreign and indigenous). The findings imply that linkages between the foreign and domestic sectors need to be improved if FDI is to be a vehicle for improving the competitiveness of domestic firms. Alternatively, policies may have to be directed towards the indigenous firms themselves to enhance their export performance.     

International Capital Mobility in the Short Run and the Long Run: A Daily Data Study for Japan,Singapore and Taiwan*

Using daily data from between 1993 and 2003, covered interest differential and cointegration tests are applied to examine short‐run and long‐run international capital mobility for Japan, Singapore and Taiwan, and, for comparison purposes, the UK. Despite the high short‐run mobility in Japan (Singapore and Taiwan), being slightly (significantly) lower than in the UK, perfect long‐run mobility exists in all three Asian economies, especially when the Asian currency crisis is excluded. Different short‐run and long‐run mobility implies the existence of a response lag in the financial market. As expected, although the impulse response reaches the significant long‐run equilibrium level shortly after the shock in the UK, lagged responses appear in the three Asian economies, particularly in Singapore and Taiwan.     

Cross‐border Mergers and Acquisitions and Financial Development: Evidence from Emerging Asia

This paper examines the relationship between cross‐border mergers and acquisitions (M&A) and financial development in emerging Asian economies. Bilateral cross‐border M&A data for nine emerging Asian economies covering 2000–2009 are analyzed with a sample selection model and a panel data model. The estimation results show that although the banking sector still plays a crucial role in facilitating cross‐border M&A, the role of equity markets has increased in importance because, in addition to cash, the issuance of common stock and the exchange of stocks have become popular forms of payment for M&A deals. Because of the relatively thin market, the primary corporate bond market plays a limited role in supporting cross‐border M&A, which is in contrast to the primary public bond market. However, for the secondary market, the corporate bond market is more effective in facilitating cross‐border M&A. The results also show that financial development in terms of stock and bond markets in their home countries tends to become more important when the target firms reside in more developed countries. In addition to financial development, the paper shows that most cross‐border M&A are invested in technology‐related and resource‐based industries while cheap labor industries are relatively less attractive.     

金融发展、技术进步与产业结构升级 —基于西部12省面板数据的经验分析

选取1994-2015年西部12省的数据,采用静态面板模型研究三者之间的关系。结果表明：西部地区金融发展对技术进步存在轻微抑制作用;金融发展对产业结构的调整作用主要体现在第二产业比例的提升;技术进步推动产业结构升级的作用并不明显。最后提出完善金融发展体系,强化金融支持力度;提高科技创新能力,依托技术进步培育新兴优势产业;积极发展现代服务业以促进二三产业协调发展等建议。     

Equity,Bonds, Institutional Debt and Economic Growth: Evidence from South Africa

We examine the finance‐growth nexus in South Africa accounting for the role of bond markets, stock markets, and bank and non‐bank financial intermediaries using a vector autoregressive technique. Extant empirical literature has largely accounted for only banks and stock markets, ignoring bond market and non‐bank financial intermediaries. We find that bond market development affects economic growth in South Africa, and no similar effect is observed for the bank and non‐bank financial intermediaries and the stock market. Our finding shows that examination of individual elements of the financial system is important in understanding the unique effect of each on growth. The observation that the bond market rather than stock market, bank and non‐bank institutions promote economic growth in South Africa induces an intriguing question as to what unique roles bond markets play that the intermediaries and equity market are unable to play.     

Impact of Foreign Direct Investment and Export on Urbanization: Evidence from China

This paper investigates the impact of foreign direct investment (FDI) and exports on urbanization in China. Using prefecture city‐level panel data covering China's 262 prefecture cities for the period 2004–2013 and employing a dynamic panel system generalized method of moments model with instrumental variable regression techniques, our study finds that FDI and exports have, on average, played a significantly positive role in China's urbanization. However, the impacts of FDI and exports on urbanization vary across regions. FDI has a positive and significant impact on urbanization in the coastal region but has no impact on urbanization in the inland region. Exports have a positive and significant impact on urbanization in both the coastal and inland regions, but the effect is much larger in the coastal region than in the inland region. The results imply that further attracting FDI inflows and promoting exports will contribute to China's urbanization, especially for the inland region.     

Multinational enterprises, regional economic integration, and export-platform production in the host countries: An empirical analysis for the US and Japanese corporations

Multinational Enterprises, Regional Economic Integration and Export-Platform Production in the Host Countries: An Empirical Analysis for the US and Japanese Corporations. — This paper analyzes determinants of export orientation of overseas affiliates of US and Japanese MNEs for the 1982–1994 period. The author contends that production geared to MNEs’ home market and that production oriented to third-country markets are determined by different factors. The empirical analysis finds the home-market-oriented production concentrated in countries that offer low-cost workforce, enjoy geographical proximity or preferential access to the home market. The location of third-country-market-oriented exports is influenced more by strategic factors such as participation in regional trading blocs and preferential access to major markets than factor costs considerations.     

The Impact of Firm Size and Liquidity on the Cost of External Finance in Africa

Established illiquidity measures are constructed for emerging markets in Africa and used to determine which best explains trading costs. Costs of equity are derived from an augmented Capital Asset Pricing Model for a sample of emerging financial markets generally ignored in the literature. These include: South Africa and Namibia, three countries in North Africa and four in Sub‐Saharan Africa (SSA), plus London and Paris as examples of integrated markets. Minimum variance portfolios are constructed and asset weights derived, with the sample divided into countries dependent on their legal regime. Portfolio weights are shown to be directly related to well‐regulated markets with high standards of corporate governance and disclosure, and firms seeking cost‐effective finance from SSA stock markets are at a distinct disadvantage compared with those in Northern Africa, South Africa and, in particular, London and Paris.