A macroeconomic model of international price discrimination

This paper builds a baseline two-country model of real and monetary transmission in the presence of optimal international price discrimination by firms. Distributing traded goods to consumers requires nontradables, making the price elasticity of demand country-specific and a function of the exchange rate. Profit-maximizing monopolistic firms drive a wedge between prices across countries, optimally dampening the response of import and consumer prices to exchange-rate movements. We derive general equilibrium expressions for the pass-through into import and consumer prices, tracing the differential impact of real and monetary shocks on marginal cost and markup fluctuations through the exchange rate.     

Pass-Through Elasticity,Substitution and Market Share: the Case for Sheep Meat Exports

This paper empirically examines the exchange rate pass-through elasticity, using sheep meat exports from the two major exporters, Australia and New Zealand. The results show the coexistence of incomplete and complete pass-through in the international sheep meat industry. The Australian sheep meat exporters have a relatively smaller market share than New Zealand and are not able to exercise monopoly power. New Zealand producers, on the other hand, can increase their mark-ups in those destination countries where they have a large market share.     

Exchange rates and prices: Evidence from China

This article develops a pricing model that incorporates an industrial organization approach with the traditional quantity theory of money to explain the impact of exchange rates on consumer prices. Using time-series data on prices and exchange rates of China, the model replicates the main features of the observed facts: exchange rates influence consumer prices through changing import prices; money supply and output influence consumer prices following the quantity theory. The estimating results show that exchange-rate pass-through to consumer prices is low and increases from the short run to the long run. The extent of pass-through is likely to depend on markup adjustment and marginal costs.     

State dependent pricing, invoicing currency, and exchange rate pass-through

We analyze exchange rate pass-through and volatility of import prices in a dynamic framework where firms are subject to menu costs and decide on price adjustments in response to exchange rate innovations. The exchange rate pass-through and import price volatility then depend on the invoicing currency in combination with functional forms of cost and demand functions. In particular, there is lower pass-through, less frequent price adjustments, and lower price volatility when prices are set in the importer's currency than when prices are set in the exporter's currency.     

Exchange Rate Pass-Through and the Role of Market Shares

This paper examines the effects of changing market shares on exchange rate pass-through to US import prices. Based on a static model of imperfect competition, I predict that a country with a larger share of a host’s import market will have lower pass-through than its competitors. Using highly disaggregated data on US imports, I implement rolling regressions to calculate unique quarterly values of pass-through for specific goods from each exporting country. These values are compared across market shares, indicating a general trend of decreasing pass-through for larger shares. Most specifically, as predicted by the model, the country holding the largest share of the market has significantly lower pass-through than its competitors. The negative relationship between pass-through and market share holds across most categories of goods, most notably the larger categories of imports. Lastly, I show the market share effect is stronger following larger fluctuations in the exchange rate, particularly after large dollar appreciations.     

股权分置改革后股东对管理者的激励博弈分析

股权分置改革完成后,中国上市公司的股权结构实现股份全流通和股权分散化,内部人控制问题得到强化,股东和管理层之间发生严重的委托代理问题。从分析管理者效用函数出发寻求其最优努力的内解,通过股东建立的股权激励机制来约束最优努力解,寻求完全信息动态博弈的子博弈精练纳什均衡解,分析结果显示,企业价值最大化由管理层努力产出弹性和努力成本弹性决定,并受企业的资源配置、赢利能力的约束。     

Endogenous exchange rate pass-through when nominal prices are set in advance

This paper develops a model of endogenous exchange rate pass-through within an open economy macroeconomic framework, where both pass-through and the exchange rate are simultaneously determined, and interact with one another. Pass-through is endogenous because firms choose the currency in which they set their export prices. There is a unique equilibrium rate of pass-through under the condition that exchange rate volatility rises as the degree of pass-through falls. We show that the relationship between exchange rate volatility and economic structure may be substantially affected by the presence of endogenous pass-through. Our key results show that pass-through is related to the relative stability of monetary policy. Countries with relatively low volatility of money growth will have relatively low rates of exchange rate pass-through, while countries with relatively high volatility of money growth will have relatively high pass-through rates.     

人民币汇率变动的进口价格传递效应——基于企业类型的实证研究

汇率传递是汇率变动与其经济影响的中间环节。传递弹性在很大程度上决定了汇率变动经济影响的大小。利用分布滞后模型、协整、向量自回归等方法,研究本国企业和外资企业的进口价格对人民币汇率变动的传递效应,结果显示,外资企业进口价格的传递弹性明显大于本国企业,人民币升值对外资企业进口的促进作用较明显。由于外资企业进口的很大部分是用于加工贸易,其较高的传递弹性会在一定程度上抵消人民币升值对出口的负面影响。     

Incomplete pass-through and the welfare effects of exchange rate variability

This paper considers the implications of incomplete exchange rate pass-through for optimal monetary and exchange rate policy. A two-country model is presented, which allows an explicit derivation of welfare functions in terms of a weighted sum of the second moments of producer prices and the nominal exchange rate. From a single country perspective, the optimal exchange rate variance depends on the degree of pass-through, the size and openness of the economy, the elasticity of labour supply and the volatility of foreign producer prices. Welfare may be decreasing or increasing in the volatility of the exchange rate.     

Into the Mussa puzzle: monetary policy regimes and the real exchange rate in a small open economy

Industrial countries moving from fixed to floating exchange rate regimes experience dramatic rises in the variability of the real exchange rate. This evidence, forcefully documented by Mussa [Nominal exchange regimes and the behavior of real exchange rates: evidence and implications. Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy 25 (1986) 117], is a puzzle because it is hard to reconcile with the assumption of flexible prices. This paper lays out a dynamic general equilibrium model of a small open economy that combines nominal price rigidity with a systematic behavior of monetary policy able to approximate a continuum of exchange rate regimes. A version of the model with complete exchange rate pass-through is broadly consistent with Mussa’s findings. Most importantly, this holds independently of the underlying source of fluctuations in the economy, stressing the role of the nominal exchange rate regime per se in affecting the variability of the real exchange rate. However, only a model featuring incomplete exchange rate pass-through can account for a broader range of exchange rate statistics. Finally there exist ranges of values for either the degree of openness or the elasticity of substitution between domestic and foreign goods for which the baseline model is also consistent with the empirical insensitivity of output volatility to the type of exchange rate regime, as documented by Baxter and Stockman [Journal of Monetary Economics 23 (1989) 377].     

Asymmetric effects of exchange rate movements on traditional and modern services exports: Evidence from a large emerging economy

The service sector in India has emerged as the ‘new engine of growth’ with an increasing share in output and exports. In this paper we analyse the effect of real exchange rate movements on service exports of India, incorporating goods exports, financial development, FDI inflows, world demand and the role of globalization as drivers. We find that while traditional service exports are negatively and significantly affected by the real exchange rate movements, the modern service exports are negatively but not significantly affected. By applying the asymmetric cointegration approach, the results also confirm the non-existence of any asymmetric relationship between the real exchange rate and service exports in India. Further, the results also show that the supply augmenting and demand-side factors are more dominant than the exchange rate to affect service exports from India.     

Why labor income shares seem to be constant?

Abstract

The common assumptions that labor income share does not change over time or across countries and that factor income shares are equal to the elasticity of output with respect to factors have had important implications for economic theory. However, there are several theoretical reasons for why the elasticity of output with respect to reproducible factors should be correlated with the stage of development. In particular, the behavior of international trade and capital flows and the existence of factor saving innovations imply such a correlation. If this correlation exists and if factor income shares are equal to the elasticity of output with respect to factors then the labor income share must be negatively correlated with the stage of development. The existence of a labor intensive sector that produces non-tradable goods would explain why labor income share has no correlation with income per capita.     

The adjustment of global external balances: Does partial exchange-rate pass-through to trade prices matter?

This paper assesses whether partial exchange-rate pass-through to trade prices has important implications for the prospective adjustment of global external imbalances. To address this question, we develop and estimate an open-economy DSGE model in which pass-through is incomplete due to the presence of local currency pricing, distribution services, and a variable demand elasticity that leads to fluctuations in optimal markups. We find that the overall magnitude of trade adjustment is similar in a low and high pass-through environment with more adjustment in a low pass-through world occurring through movements in the terms of trade rather than real trade flows and through a larger response of the exchange rate.     

Exchange rates,money, and relative prices: The dollar-pound in the 1920s

This paper applies the monetary approach to exchange rate determination to the analysis of the monthly dollar/pound exchange rate during the period preceding the return of Britain to gold in 1925. The analytical framework emphasizes that the exchange rate is influenced by real and monetary factors. Special attention is given to the relationship between the exchange rate and the relative price of traded to non-traded goods. The estimated elasticity of the exchange rate with respect to this relative price is shown to be about 0.4 which provides an independent measure of the relative share of spending on non-traded goods.     

理论劳动收入份额测度及分解——基于时变弹性生产函数模型

劳动收入份额是理解国民收入分配格局的关键。本文基于时变弹性生产函数模型估计得到理论劳动收入份额,并将实际劳动收入份额分解为为理论劳动收入份额和市场扭曲两个因素。定义劳动收入份额实际值和理论值的差值为市场扭曲。实证研究发现,理论劳动收入份额显示与实际劳动收入份额一致的趋势,是劳动收入份额长期趋势的决定因素;市场扭曲显示与实际劳动收入份额一致的波动,是劳动收入份额短期波动的主要原因;实际劳动工资偏离劳动边际产出,是市场价格扭曲的根本体现。本文研究为正确理解中国劳动收入份额时变性提供新的参考。     

An empirical note on factor shares

In this study, we propose an explanation for why labor and capital shares do not seem to have a trend: an increasing trend in physical capital share is compensated by a decreasing trend in land share. Similarly, an increasing trend in human capital share is compensated by a decreasing trend in raw labor share. We also find empirical support for the claim that the elasticity of output with respect to reproducible factors, human and physical capital, is positively correlated with the income level. This result has important implications for economic growth theory and for empirical exercises related to economic growth.     

The short run efficacy of monetary policy under floating exchange rates reconsidered

This paper disputes the argument that the short-run effectiveness of monetary policy in stabilizing domestic output under floating rates is necessarily reduced if elasticities of demand for imports and exports with respect to the current exchange rate are low and capital flows depend on the exchange rate. It is shown that the relative efficacy of monetary changes is determined by the interest rate elasticity of international interest payments and receipts and the effect of exchange rate variations on the demand for money in addition to the exchange rate elasticities of trade and capital flows.     

Firm-level volatility and exports

This paper shows that the share of exports in the total sales of a firm has a positive and substantial impact on the volatility of its sales. Decomposing the volatility of sales of exporters between their domestic and export markets, I show using an identification strategy based on a firm-specific geographical instrument that firms with a larger export share have more volatile domestic sales and less volatile exports. These empirical patterns can be explained using a model in which firms face market-specific shocks and short-run convex costs of production. In such a framework, firms react to a shock in one market by adjusting their sales in the other market. I point to strong evidence that output variations on the domestic and export market are negatively correlated at the firm level. This result casts doubts on the standard hypothesis that firms face constant marginal costs and maximize profits on their different markets independently of each other. Furthermore, it points to the caveat that sales volatility on a particular market only gives limited information about the size of shocks on that market.     

Trading activities,productivity and markups: Evidence for Spanish manufacturing

This work analyses the firms' internationalisation strategies of importing intermediates and exporting output, and the potential rewards of these activities in terms of total factor productivity (TFP), as a proxy for marginal costs, and markups. It further deepens into the study of the relationship between internationalisation strategies and markups by disentangling whether it operates through affecting firms' marginal costs and/or firms' prices. The panel database employed in this paper is the Spanish Survey on Business Strategies (ESEE) for the period 2006–14. Results in the paper distinguish between SMEs and large firms and indicate that there is high persistence in the performance of these activities and in firms' TFP and markups. For SMEs, we obtain rewards from importing inputs as well as exporting output in terms of TFP and markups. For large firms, we obtain rewards in TFP from the importing activity and rewards in markups from the exporting activity. Finally, we find evidence that the effects of internationalisation strategies on markups are due to both a price channel and a marginal cost channel.