东亚货币合作的制约因素与政策建议

根据建立货币区的相关衡量标准,目前东亚地区还存在着经济趋同障碍、政治障碍、第N种货币问题以及缺乏区域性的超国家货币管理机构等制约因素.因此,现阶段尚无法建立东亚货币合作区.目前较为现实的选择是分阶段渐进推进东亚货币一体化进程,包括加强区域内的多边汇率政策协调、建立次区域货币区、最终建立东亚共同货币区.     

Fiscal Discipline and Exchange Rate Systems

A new 'fiscal' theory of price determination has implications for exchange rate systems and common currency areas. We show that deeper monetary integration requires the discipline of a Ricardian regime ; that is, the government must guarantee fiscal solvency for any sequence of prices or exchange rates. Particularly striking results are that a currency peg is not credible without the discipline of a Ricardian regime, and a common currency area is not viable if fiscal policy in two (or more) of the countries in the union is Non-Ricardian. Interestingly, constraints written into the Maastricht Treaty are sufficient for a Ricardian regime.     

AN ANALYSIS OF INTERNATIONAL PRICE DIFFERENTIALS ON EBAY

Online auction sites like eBay provide ways to measure what consumers buy and how much they pay. Does this imply that consumers pay similar prices, irrespective of their location? Comparing prices for homogeneous, tradable goods in the euro area and the United Kingdom, we find that prices differ significantly. The differential is not related to countries' having different currencies. However, price dispersion—the variance of prices—does seem to be smaller if two countries share a common currency. Our results confirm the importance of national borders in explaining price differences and their magnitude is related to (not) sharing a common currency. (JEL E30, E31, E50, F40)     

The synchronization of wage dynamics across EMU members. A test of the endogeneity hypothesis

We test the hypothesis of an endogenous currency area for the labor market of the Euro area: has the introduction of a common currency caused wage dynamics to become more synchronized and to be able to cushion for asymmetric shocks? Trade intensity, sector specialization and financial integration are tested for being the driving forces for the endogenous synchronization of wage dynamics. We use regression techniques with instrument variables, and find evidence of persistent asymmetries in nominal wage formation, despite a single currency and monetary policy. We explain the result with more specialization following financial integration, and with still existing differences in wage formation and labor market institutions. We conclude that the euro zone is not endogenous with respect to wage formation. Rather, there are incentives for beggar-thy-neighbor policies in the Euro area.     

CURRENCY UNION WITH OR WITHOUT BANKING UNION

We build a symmetric two‐country monetary model with credit to study the interplay between currency integration and credit markets integration. The currency arrangement affects credit availability through default incentives. We capture credit markets integration by the extra cost incurred to obtain credit for cross‐border transactions and, with the euro area context in mind, label as banking union a situation where this cost is low. For high levels of the cross‐border credit cost, currency integration may magnify default incentives, leading to more credit rationing and lower welfare. The integration of credit markets restores the optimality of the currency union.     

THE SUITABILITY OF A GREATER CHINA CURRENCY UNION

Abstract. The study assesses the level of integration among the three Greater China economies (China, Hong Kong and Taiwan) and examines the suitability of a Greater China currency union. The three economies already have extensive trade and investment linkages. Our analyses show that they share common long‐run and short‐run cyclical variations. We also estimate the output costs of relinquishing policy autonomy to form a currency union. The estimated output losses, which depend on, e.g., the method used to generate shock estimates, seem to be moderate and are likely to be less than the efficient gains derived from a currency union.     

The American external seigniorage: Origin,cost to Europe,and possible defences

External seigniorage is defined as the advantage resulting, for a country, from the fact that it may impose the use of its own currency on seemingly independent countries. In 1960, the United States had to resort to this device as a consequence of the dollar glut. Since then, European countries were gradually compelled to hold on to 20 billion dollars, receiving short-term interest rates for what were in fact long-term loans to America — with capital and interest losses over 13 years of 9 billions of 1972 dollars. This will stop only when the Europeans create and use their common currency.     

The Role of Foreign Bond Issuance: The Case of Australia

We examined the recent development of the foreign bond—termed Kangaroo bond—market in Australia. Overwhelmingly, issuers in this market are of high credit quality and comprise sovereign, supranational and major international financial institutions. Local institutional investors have a preference for simple, fixed‐rate pricing structures, with foreign issuers reliant upon converting their Australian dollar‐denominated bond proceeds into the currency and coupon type of choice using cross‐currency swaps. The Kangaroo bond issuers provide a natural counterparty to Australian residents issuing in foreign currency in offshore markets, where cross‐currency swaps allow them to easily convert their proceeds into Australian dollars.     

Tests of microeconomic foundations of a North American common currency area

Abstract.  The movement of some members of the European Union towards a common currency area is likely to spark interest in other possible common currency areas. One such area of interest is a North American common currency area. In this paper some results from tests of microeconomic foundations of a North American common currency area are presented. These results can be viewed as favourable for the formation of a North American common currency area. JEL classification: F33, F36     

An analysis of East Asian currency area: Bayesian dynamic factor model approach

There has recently been an increasing interest in the establishment of a common currency area in East Asia in the aftermath of the East Asian financial crisis. In this article I examine the desirability and feasibility of forming a currency area in the region by checking the symmetry of shocks as an important criterion of the theory of Optimum Currency Area. I employ a dynamic factor model to decompose aggregate output into world, regional and country‐specific components and estimate the model using a Gibbs sampling simulation. Persistent properties of those components are examined and variance decomposition analysis is performed to investigate the role of each component in output variance. The European Monetary Union, with the successful launch of the euro, is the natural benchmark for comparison. Based on variance analysis, it is found that East Asian countries, on average, are less plausible candidates for a currency area than European counterparts. However, a subgroup of countries in East Asia is as qualified as those in Europe. Given the ongoing integration in East Asia, it is not premature to prepare for such a currency area in this region.     

European Monetary Integration and Aggregate Relative Deprivation: The Dull Side of the Shiny Euro

Drawing on the premise that the integration of economies revises people's social space and their comparators, we quantify social stress by aggregate relative deprivation, ARD; we calculate the effect of monetary mergers on ARD; and we document the validity of the superadditivity property of ARD for successive adoptions of a common currency by European countries. One feature of monetary unification, which replaces diverse currencies with a common currency, is that it brings about a change in the comparison environment, expanding the reference space of individuals in a given country to encompass individuals from the joining countries. Overall, calculations regarding six enlargements of the Economic and Monetary Union between 1999 and 2011 reveal an increase of ARD on six occasions when we hold incomes constant, and on five when we take into consideration changes in incomes. In addition, we observe an uneven distribution of the costs and benefits from monetary integration among the participating countries when these costs and benefits are measured in terms of ARD.     

Early Warning for Currency Crises: What Is the Role of Financial Openness?

The paper explores whether financial openness—capital account openness and gross capital inflows—makes countries vulnerable to currency crises. A quarterly dataset on 46 advanced and emerging market economies (AEs and EMEs) during 1975Q1–2011Q4 is used, with the period after Q2 2007 used for out‐of‐sample testing. The key findings are: (1) capital account openness is associated with lower probability of currency crises, but less so for EMEs; (2) surges in gross capital flows are associated with increased risk of currency crises; and (3) the model performs well out‐of‐sample, confirming that early warning models are helpful in judging relative vulnerability.     

Technology transfer: economic factors that influence transferor and transferee’s choice*

ABSTRACT

This research presents itself as one of the earliest studies to consider economic factors that influence decision making in an international technology transfer while considering the perspectives of the transferor and transferee individually. Unlike previous studies, this study takes a multi-variable analysis approach in considering these factors through the development of a common analytical framework that can be applied to similar studies. The methodology used herein is quantitative and involves a multiple regression analysis, which combines variables examined unilaterally in earlier studies. The results show that economic factors that influence a transferor’s choice of a transferee include inflation rate, currency exchange rate, and foreign direct investment while in the converse relationship, the results prove that in addition to inflation rate, currency exchange rate, and foreign direct investment, official development assistance was also relevant.     

Development of Sunflower Oil Exports in Russia and the EEU: Main Trends,Prospects, and Evaluations by the Gravity Model

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this paper is to assess the major trends, factors, and prospects of development of Russian and EEU sunflower oil exports. The sanctions resulted in an increase of sunflower oil exports in 2014 to a peak value, which allowed the producers to accumulate revenues in hard currency. The gravity models findings for Russia and for the EEU show that the sanctions stimulated the growth of sunflower oil exports. As distinct from a common language, a common border also encourages the development of Eurasian exports to third countries. The tariff size in the importer country is strongly and negatively connected with exports both from Russia and from the EEU. The effect of regional integration within the EEU is insignificant for the development of sunflower oil exports, while regional integration processes in the CIS have a positive impact on exports.     

Financial Integration and EMU’s External Imbalances in a Two-Country OLG Model

The pronounced increase in external imbalances in the European Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) during the years running up to 2008 is traditionally explained by financial integration through the common currency. This paper examines in a one-good, two-country overlapping generations’ model, with production, capital accumulation and public debt, the effects of financial integration on the net foreign asset positions of initially low-interest and high-interest rate EMU countries. We find that a lower savings rate and government expenditure quota, together with a higher capital production share in the latter can in fact be transformed into the observed external imbalances when interest rates converge.     

A few observations on financial liberalization and financial instability

Recent studies have conjectured that there may be a link between financial liberalization (FL) and financial instability in emerging economies. Most of these studies, however, do not investigate whether emerging economies are, in fact, becoming structurally more vulnerable to currency and banking crises. In this paper, I argue that emerging economies are becoming more susceptible to both currency and banking crises after FL. Using data for 27 emerging economies—excluding transition economies—from 1973 to the present, a univariate analysis indicates that the likelihood of currency crises may increase with stronger reactions to financial variables than to real or external trade variables. Similarly, for banking crises, interest rate, exchange rate, maturity, and default may increase, while simultaneously the support structure of the government seems to decline.     

Asymmetric Shocks and Monetary Policy in a Currency Union

We analyze the conduct of monetary policy in a currency union in the face of asymmetric shocks. In particular, we compare the stabilization properties of a currency union versus alternative exchange rate arrangements. The relative performance of a currency union is shown to depend on the extent of economic integration in patterns of consumption and production and on the relative weights placed on price stability versus employment stability in the monetary authority's objective function.
JEL classification : F 33; F 40     

Monetary policy synchronization in the ASEAN-5 region: an exchange rate perspective

In light of the long-standing vision of economic and monetary integration in the ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) region and the importance of coordinating monetary policies to achieve it, the objective of this article is to assess the monetary policy synchronization among the founding members of the ASEAN, that is, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand. Due to the importance of exchange rate movements to monetary policies, we approach this issue from a currency exchange rate perspective. Specifically, multivariate trend–cycle decomposition is employed to investigate common trends and common cycles among the exchange rates of these countries during the period 1976–2012. Our analysis reveals that the real exchange rates of Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand share common cycles in the short term and have common trends in the long term, but the Indonesian currency does not share these relationships. Thus, our results augur well for the synchronization of monetary policies among Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand. In contrast, the relatively turbulent dynamics of the Indonesian rupiah evident in frequent bouts of stark depreciation separated by periods of steady depreciation over the past three decades raise questions regarding the readiness of Indonesia for participating in a monetary alliance with the ASEAN-4 nations.     

The Velocity of Circulation: Some new evidence on international integration

This study tests for the integration of money velocity movements among the major European Union countries. For this purpose, a new test is employed that allows one to confirm or reject integration on the basis of whether or not the first largest principal component, based on deviations of velocity growth rates from a base country, is stationary. Using monthly data covering the last 25 years, this study finds that integration was strongest during the 1970s and during 1983-92. These findings modify the institutionalist view that common financial developments have meant that velocities have moved together on an upward secular trend over the last 40 years. Developments with regard to currency substitution along with exchange rate policy and capital controls can affect relative interest rates and income movements and therefore the co-movements in money velocities.     

Financial Market Imperfections and the Impact of Exchange Rate Movements on Exports*

This paper analyzes empirically the role of financial market imperfections in the way countries’ exports react to a currency depreciation. Using quarterly data for 27 developed and developing countries over the period 1990–2005, we find that the impact of a depreciation on exports will be less positive—or even negative—for a country if: (i) firms borrow in foreign currency; (ii) they are credit constrained; (iii) they are specialized in industries that require more external capital; (iv) the magnitude of depreciation or devaluation is large. This last result emphasizes the existence of a nonlinear relationship between an exchange rate depreciation and the reaction of a country's exports when financial imperfections are observed. This offers a new explanation for the consequences of recent currency crises in middle‐income countries.