Does the exchange rate regime matter for real shocks? Evidence from windstorms and earthquakes

Does the choice of exchange rate regime affect an economy's adjustment to real shocks? Exploiting the unpredictability and economic exogeniety of windstorms-hurricanes and typhoons-and earthquakes this paper assesses the often contrasting answers found in the theoretical literature. There is robust evidence that exchange rate flexibility helps an economy better adjust to real shocks. And consistent with the channels emphasized in the classic literature on exchange rates and shocks, differences in the behavior of the export sector help explain the different reactions between the two regimes.     

The impact of world oil price shocks on the Canada/U.S. real exchange rate

This article investigates whether and how changes in the world oil price affect the Canada/U.S. real exchange rate. We applied vector autoregression and vector error correction models for the real exchange rate, world oil price, monetary differential, government spending, and productivity differential between the two countries. Our results demonstrate that a surge in the world oil price will lead to an appreciation of the Canadian dollar in the short and long term. Product differentials and U.S. government spending have a negative impact on the Canada/U.S. real exchange rate, and Canadian government spending leads to a depreciation of the Canadian dollar.     

The causes of real exchange rate movements

Increasing exchange rate fluctuations, such as those that have occurred in the US dollar, have recently revived the discussion about the causes of such movements and the criteria for calculating the long-term over- or undervaluation of a currency. This article stresses some aspects that have attracted little attention hitherto.     

Real exchange rate shocks and new product margins in the export market

This study examines the impact of industry real exchange rate (RER) shocks on plant and product exports using a comprehensive dataset for South Korea from 1990 to 1996. We find that RER changes have heterogeneous effects on real exports of existing exporters in terms of their productivity, and the positive RER depreciation effect on exports is more pronounced for less productive plants. At a product level, we find new evidence that a weak home currency prompts exporters to introduce new products to the export market, especially more remarkable for low-productivity plants. In contrast, a strong home currency leads to product exit with less significance.     

Interpreting real exchange rate movements in transition countries

Real exchange rate movements in the transition economies during the initial transition period were unusually large by the standards of other economies and periods. Using cross-sectional evidence, this paper documents how real exchange rates were generally misaligned at the onset of the transition and how most of this misalignment was eliminated over a relatively short period. Turning to the time series dimension, the paper shows that estimates from a consensus-type single-equation model of the real exchange rate are well-behaved and provide a good fit for exchange rate movements in the early transition period. The results highlight the role of productivity-driven real exchange rate movements that can be interpreted as reflecting both the impact of the structural transformation process on productivity in the tradables sector per se and the effects of changes in tradables versus non-tradables productivity. Furthermore, the results show that the relationship between productivity and real exchange rates holds both when productivity is increasing and when it is falling.     

Job creation, job destruction, and the real exchange rate

Welfare gains from trade are reduced by adjustment costs associated with factor reallocation, but most studies of the effects of trade on labor markets focus only on net employment change. This paper takes a step toward identifying trade-related adjustment costs by estimating the effects of real exchange rates on labor reallocation using a new model of gross job creation and destruction applied to detailed U.S. manufacturing industries between 1973 and 1993. Trend real exchange rates significantly affect job reallocation but not net employment. Cyclical real exchange rates significantly affect net employment through job destruction only.     

Determinants of the real effective exchange rate in the Russian Federation

This article examines the main determinants of the Russian real effective exchange rate (REX) movements over the transition period started in the early 1990s. To understand the forces that drive exchange rate dynamics, five strands of the empirical literature have been combined ina time series dimension. The results suggest a positive long-run cointegration relationship between the REX, oil price, productivity and government financial position and a negative relation with international reserves. Managing international reserves and fiscal policies have therefore, the effect of mitigating the impact of oil/terms of trade and productivity shocks on the REX.     

Causes of nonlinearities in low-order models of the real exchange rate

This paper investigates the extent to which modern DSGE models, which feature local currency pricing, home bias, nontraded goods, and incomplete markets, can generate nonlinear real exchange rate dynamics that are consistent with those found in the time series literature using data from the current floating period. Our key findings are as follows. First, if the true model can be appropriately characterized as a set of linear equations, then linearity tests that utilize univariate autoregressions of the real exchange rate suffer from an omitted variables problem, which leads them to overestimate the true incidence of nonlinearity. Consequently, studies that fail to control for this problem may spuriously find evidence of nonlinearities in the data, despite the fact that the data generating process may be linear. Second, we propose a strategy that can largely eliminate this distortion. Finally, we find that DSGE models solved using higher order approximations are capable of generating true structural nonlinearities in real exchange rates both asymptotically and in short samples.     

Lending booms, sharp reversals and real exchange rate dynamics

Emerging markets in the 1990s experienced periods of booms followed by collapses in gross domestic product, consumption, traded and non-traded sector output and real exchange rate movements alongside unprecedented movements in foreign investor participation in these economies. An important feature of these episodes is the asymmetry in the pattern of booms and collapses. We introduce a natural search friction into the foreign investment decision in a small open economy and demonstrate that this can generate the asymmetry observed in the data. The magnitude of the reversals predicted by the model can be quantitatively large and empirically relevant.     

Financial liberalization,structural change,and real exchange rate appreciations

The last twenty years have witnessed periods of sustained appreciations of the real exchange rate in emerging economies. The case of Mexico between 1988 and 2002 is representative of several episodes in Latin America and Central and Eastern Europe in which countries opening to capital flows experienced large appreciations accompanied by a significant reallocation of workers towards the non-tradable sector. We account for these facts using a two sector dynamic general equilibrium model of a small open economy with frictions to labor reallocation and two driving forces: (i) A decline in the cost of borrowing in foreign markets, and (ii) differential productivity growth across sectors. These two mechanisms account together for 60% of the decline in the domestic relative price of tradables in Mexico and for a large fraction of the observed reallocation of labor across sectors. The decline in the interest rate faced by Mexico in international markets is quantitatively the most important channel. Our results are robust to the inclusion of terms of trade into the model.     

Financial liberalization, structural change, and real exchange rate appreciations

The last twenty years have witnessed periods of sustained appreciations of the real exchange rate in emerging economies. The case of Mexico between 1988 and 2002 is representative of several episodes in Latin America and Central and Eastern Europe in which countries opening to capital flows experienced large appreciations accompanied by a significant reallocation of workers towards the non-tradable sector. We account for these facts using a two sector dynamic general equilibrium model of a small open economy with frictions to labor reallocation and two driving forces: (i) A decline in the cost of borrowing in foreign markets, and (ii) differential productivity growth across sectors. These two mechanisms account together for 60% of the decline in the domestic relative price of tradables in Mexico and for a large fraction of the observed reallocation of labor across sectors. The decline in the interest rate faced by Mexico in international markets is quantitatively the most important channel. Our results are robust to the inclusion of terms of trade into the model.     

Investigating exchange rate shocks on agricultural trade balance: The case of Tunisia

The paper studies the impact of changes in Tunisia's exchange rate on the net external position of the agricultural sector. It shows that substitutability on production and consumption among domestically produced goods leads to an ambiguous impact for reasons that go beyond the Marshall-Lerner condition. Using cointegration techniques to disentangle the long and short-run impact of changes in the exchange rate on the net agricultural trade balance, we find that the depreciation of the domestic currency leads to a deterioration of the net external position of Tunisia's agricultural sector in the long-run.     

Aid and the real exchange rate: Dutch disease effects in African countries

There is little evidence to show that official development assistance to sub-Saharan African countries has led to significant improvements of macroeconomic indicators such as export performance. Using four CFA zone countries (Burkina Faso, Côte d'lvoire, Senegal and Togo) as case studies, this article analyses the relationship between aid inflows and the real exchange rate with a view to identifying symptoms of “Dutch disease” in these economies.     

Asymmetric real exchange rates and poverty: The role of remittances

This paper explores the asymmetric effect of real exchange rate changes on poverty through the remittance channel for a panel of 99 countries, spanning the period 1980–2015. Considering a threshold partial adjustment modelling approach, the results document that real exchange rate depreciations exert a stronger positive effect on poverty through remittances. The results are expected to be of substantial importance in the case of emerging and developing countries in designing exchange rate and inflation policies that affect the poverty levels of their population through the mechanism of remittances.     

Endogenous norms in wage and price setting and hysteresis in the real exchange rate

Real exchange rates are often ‘disconnected’ from fundamentals. Mean reversion toward equilibrium operates at a slow pace (if it operates at all), and when inflation is low the real exchange rate tracks closely the nominal exchange rate for prolonged periods of time. Using a simple open economy model, we show that including endogenous norms in wage and price setting in an open economy set‐up can lead to hysteresis in the real exchange rate. For a given set of fundamentals, the real exchange rate may settle down at different equilibria and exchange rate policies are not necessarily neutral in the long‐run.     

人民币实际汇率对我国FDI流入影响的实证研究

本文以固定效应模型为主,根据我国1984-2004年的外商直接投资和实际汇率等数据,实证分析了实际汇率变动与我国外商直接投资之间的关系,结果表明:二者存在长期稳定的均衡关系,短期内人民币实际汇率贬值,将使外商直接投资增加,人民币贬值的短期效应明显,但从长期来看,实际汇率的贬值对我国FDI并无明显促进作用。     

Nominal rigidity, desired markup variations, and real exchange rate persistence

This paper develops and estimates a dynamic general-equilibrium sticky-price model that accounts for real exchange rate persistence. The key feature of the model is the dependence of the firm's desired markup on its relative price. Desired markup variations exacerbate the nominal rigidity that results from the exogenously imposed frictions in the goods market. The model is estimated by the maximum-likelihood method using Canadian and U.S. data. The estimated model successfully replicates the properties of the Canada-U.S. bilateral real exchange rate. In particular, the model closely matches the persistence found in the real exchange rate series. More importantly, this is achieved with a plausible duration of price contracts and a moderate convexity of the demand function.     

Primary commodity prices and the real exchange rate: the case of Australia 1900–91

How do real exchange rates of primary commodity exporters react to changes in the relative price of these exports? The relationship between these variables is examined using ninety-two years of Australian data. There is a significant positive correlation. However, the Australian real exchange rate does not display the downward trend that has been observed in the relative price of primary commodities. This is consistent with the hypothesis that the apparent long-run decline in the relative price of primary commodities is an artefact of inadequate quality adjustment in the price series for manufactures.     

Interaction effects of restructuring decisions on operating profit following performance shocks

This paper examines the interaction effects of restructuring activities for a sample of Australian firms experiencing significant declines in operating performance. Our sample firms respond to performance shocks with both financial and corporate restructuring and they achieve significant improvements in operating profits in each of the first 3 years following the shocks. We find that financial and corporate restructuring have both contemporaneous and lagged impact on operating performance. Most importantly, we show that the interaction of restructuring events has a strong influence on the corporate recovery process. We conclude that financial and corporate restructuring play complementary as well as interactive role in reversing a declining trend in operating profits.     

Sectoral adjustment costs and real exchange rate dynamics in a two-sector dependent economy

This paper develops a two-sector model in which intersectoral capital movements involve adjustment costs, expressed as capital lost in the transformation process. These costs have important consequences for the dynamics of capital accumulation and particularly for real exchange rate dynamics. Persistent deviations of the real exchange rate from its equilibrium are derived and for plausible values of the adjustment cost parameters are consistent with the observed degree of real exchange rate persistence. For low adjustment costs the dynamics are qualitatively similar to those of the standard Heckscher-Ohlin technology. For high adjustment costs, the model converges to the specific-factors model. Thus our framework includes these two standard models as polar extremes.