Renminbi Derivatives： Recent Development and Issues

This study reviews the developments in the onshore and offshore renminbi derivatives markets. The onshore market has seen a rapid build‐up in the market infrastructure and price discovery mechanism in the past year, with empirical evidence suggesting that its pricing is increasingly determined by financial fundamentals, such as the covered interest rate parity. However, the growth of the market has been restrained by restrictions on the participant base, limited variations in the RMB/US$ exchange rate, market participants’lack of technical capacity and experience, and inadequate supporting financial market infrastructure. The non‐deliverable forward (NDF) market, concentrated in Hong Kong and Singapore, is more developed, but has the drawback that its pricing is not tied to financial fundamentals. The comparison between onshore and offshore markets suggests that two issues are of particular importance for future derivatives market development in China: the balance between regulation and development, and the relationship between onshore and offshore markets.     

黄金期货中的隐含远期人民币汇率及其运用研究

中国黄金市场已高度市场化与国际化,在按人民币即期汇率调整后,境内外黄金市场现货价格之间已没有明显的升贴水。基于黄金期货之间的隐含远期汇率与离岸人民币NDF市场远期汇率到期前的不一致性与临近到期日的一致性,运用黄金期货构建替代性的远期外汇头寸,为投资者提供了现行管制环境下实现外汇投资、跨市场套利以及对真实外汇敞口风险进行套期保值的新渠道。     

Interaction between Foreign and Domestic Investors in the Korean Stock and Futures Markets*

The present paper analyzes the behavioral relations of major investor groups in the stabilized Korean stock and futures markets after the 1997 Asian financial crisis. Investor groups cannot be classified as positive or negative feedback traders on market returns when both stock and futures markets are considered, which is inconsistent with the results in Ghysels and Seon (2005). Foreign investors and domestic institutions tend to take opposite positions in both markets. The impact of foreign investors on the basis change is significantly negative in the futures market, whereas domestic institutions have a negative relation in the stock market. This supports the view that selling activity of foreign investors in the futures market pulls the futures price down compared with the index value and, consequently, induces the reverse cash‐and‐carry trade of domestic institutions. This relationship, which negatively influenced the Korean economy during the crisis, as shown in Ghysels and Seon (2005), still exists in the Korean financial markets.     

CAPITAL CONTROLS,TWO‐TIERED EXCHANGE RATE SYSTEMS AND EXCHANGE RATE POLICY: THE SOUTH AFRICAN EXPERIENCE

South Africa's 40 years of experience with capital controls on residents and non‐residents (1961‐2001) reads like a collection of examples of perverse unanticipated effects of legislation and regulation. We show that the presence of capital controls on residents and non‐residents enabled the South African Reserve Bank to target domestic interest rates (and or the exchange rate) via interventions in the (commercial) foreign exchange market. This provides an early rationale for anchoring SA monetary policy via the exchange rate, rather than via domestic interest rates. This suggests not only that the capital controls themselves exhibited substantial institutional inertia, but that this same institutional inertia also applied to the monetary policy regime. A plausible reason for this is that for most of the 20th century in South Africa. (partial) capital controls and exchange rate based monetary policies were like Siamese twins – almost impossible to separate.     

Foreign production and international hedging in a multinational firm

This paper presents a model of a risk-averse multinational firm under exchange rate risk. The firm, which owns and controls assets in two countries, is engaged in foreign production, sales, and foreign currency forward contracting. The implications of the existence of forward markets in global market decisions are discussed. It is shown that a separation theorem holds. The optimal hedging behavior is also discussed.     

Financing Alternatives for Chinese Small and Medium Enterprises： The Case for a Small and Medium Enterprise Stock Market

Financing alternatives for small and medium enterprises in China are discussed in the present study. In particular, we analyze the significant changes and developments in China s “second board” stock market. China s extensive network of regional assets and equity exchanges, which were set up to facilitate private equity transfer, and non‐performing loan transactions seem to partially fill the void for small and medium enterprises, which cannot easily obtain approval for listing on the stock exchanges. Foreign investors can identify investment opportunities in non‐listed domestic state‐owned and private businesses through these regional assets and equity exchanges. At the same time, foreign stock markets are now attracting the young Chinese enterprises to list their stocks on their exchanges. (Edited by Zhinan Zhang)     

一体化背景下二元市场成因分析——基于中国企业拓展市场的视角

本文从企业拓展市场角度把中国企业面临的市场选择分为内需市场与外需市场。在拓展外需市场时,中国企业表现了旺盛的竞争性;而在拓展内需市场时,则异常乏力甚至无奈。通过界定内外需市场,分析这种二元市场的成因,从而为协调我国内需与外需市场的发展提出一种思考的角度。     

Anomaly in China＇s Dollar-RMB

Newly-established data on onshore deliverable US dollar-RMB forwards and the Shanghai lnterbank Offered Rate from Oetober 2006 to April 2009 reveal significant violations of covered interest rate parity. This paper explains the cause of this anomaly. Deviations in the forward market are caused by an increase in US dollar-to-RMB conversion restrictions. Given that Chinese monetary authorities want to prevent market participants from taking advantage of the predictable appreciation of the RMB, China＇s State Administration of Foreign Exchange has to tighten up the control on US dollar-to-RMB conversions. Under the tightened conversion restrictions, similar deviations will resurface in the forward market whenever hot money inflow increases. One way to avoid covered interest rate parity violations in the forward market is to decrease hot money inflow into China by maintaining a stable and credible exchange rate policy.     

Impact of RMB Appreciation on Trade and Labor Markets of China and the USA： A Multi-country Comparative General Equilibrium Model

Since the recent economic crisis, the undervaluation of China's exchange rate has been a focus in the debate on the global policy mix. Using a non‐competitive input–output table, we establish a comparative‐static general equilibrium model to simulate the impact of real exchange rate changes on Sino–US trade and labor markets. The simulation shows that the impacts of a 10‐percent RMB revaluation on the trade surplus of China and the labor market of the USA are more modest than is generally perceived, and the negative impact on the output of the non‐processing industry in China is more significant than that on the processing industry. The Sino–US trade imbalance will continue to deteriorate, China's non‐processing trade surplus will decline and the processing trade will increase, with the combined effect being small. For the USA, labor‐intensive goods imported from China will shift to different Asian countries instead of transferring back to the US market. The simulation results indicate that the impacts of an RMB revaluation on both Chinese and US labor markets would be limited.     

Cointegration and causality among the onshore and offshore markets for China's currency

China has taken steps to develop offshore markets for renminbi trading and to liberalize exchange-rate determination in its onshore market. We examine the interaction between onshore and offshore markets with attention to how the interaction has been affected by widening of the onshore trading band first in April 2012 and further in March 2014. Ties between the onshore and offshore markets were closest before the first band widening and steadily loosened thereafter. We further study the cointegration and lead-lag effects between offshore and onshore spot and forward markets and show that there is a long-term equilibrium relationship between any pair of them. Our results suggest stronger causality running from the spot onshore rate to the spot offshore rate than vice versa. Between the spot and forward markets, there is evidence of bidirectional linear and nonlinear causality, which implies foreign impulses have had an influence on the domestic market.     

Mean‐reverting and Asymmetric Volatility Switching Properties of Stock Price Index,Exchange Rate and Foreign Capital in Taiwan*

The main purpose of the present study is to explore the relationships among stock price index, exchange rate and foreign capital in Taiwan and to detect whether the mean‐reverting and asymmetric volatility switching properties exist in these markets. The multivariate asymmetric nonlinear smooth transition generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedastic in mean model is used in this study. The empirical results indicate that overbuy and oversell rates of foreign capital influence the movements of the stock price index and the exchange rate. All three conditional means exhibit asymmetric mean‐reverting behavior, with negative returns reverting quicker than positive returns in terms of both speed and magnitude. The empirical results also demonstrate that the conditional heteroskedasticities of these markets are asymmetric, generating different volatility persistence under a prior positive and negative return shock.     

Real financial market exchange rate volatility and portfolio flows

This paper studies the relationship between real financial market exchange rate volatility and US cross-border equity flows. We found strong evidence that causality goes from real financial market exchange rate volatility to equity flows. According to our results, real financial market exchange rate volatility negatively influences purchases of foreign equity. This finding is in line with the portfolio optimization theory. The impact of real financial market exchange rate volatility on sales of foreign equity is also negative. This result can be explained by the theory of behavioral finance which states that investors are reluctant to realize losses of their portfolios. This is why investors decrease sales of assets when riskiness of the assets increases. The impact of real financial market exchange rate on net purchases of foreign equity is positive. It follows from these results that sales of foreign equity decrease more strongly than purchases of foreign equity when riskiness of foreign assets increases.     

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.     

Pricing to market at firm level

This paper analyzes the influence of exchange rate variations on prices in foreign and home markets using firm data. The theoretical benchmark, based on the literature of pricing to market, also takes into account some hypotheses about the effects of demand variations and market power on prices. The empirical analysis for the Spanish economy points out the positive impact of the devaluations of the domestic currency on the relative evolution of prices, though smaller than obtained in previous evidence using aggregated data. The results also suggest a procyclical behavior of prices, which is positively affected by the degree of competition. JEL no. F12, L60, L13 This research has been partially funded by the projects SEC2003-00516, and SEC2000-0723     

MACROECONOMIC UNCERTAINTY AND CONDITIONAL STOCK MARKET VOLATILITY IN SOUTH AFRICA*

This paper analyses how systematic risk emanating from the macroeconomy is transmitted into stock market volatility using augmented autoregressive Generalised Autoregressive Conditional Heteroscedastic (AR‐GARCH) and vector autoregression (VAR) models. Also examined is whether the relationship between the two is bidirectional. By imposing dummies for the 1997‐1998 Asian and the 2007‐2009 sub‐prime financial crises, the study further analyses whether financial crises affect the relationship between macroeconomic uncertainty and stock market volatility. The findings show that macroeconomic uncertainty significantly influences stock market volatility. Although volatilities in inflation, the gold price and the oil price seem to play a role, it is found that volatility in short‐term interest rates and exchange rates are the most important, suggesting that South African domestic financial markets are increasingly becoming interdependent. Finally, the results show that financial crises increase volatility in the stock market and in most macroeconomic variables, and, by so doing, strengthen the effects of changes in macroeconomic variables on the stock market.     

人民币汇率弹性化改革对中国金融市场的影响

2005年下半年以来,人民币汇改已成为促进我国金融市场改革与发展的重要因素:外汇市场创新和改革的"催化剂"、利率市场化和货币市场创新的"助推器"、股市的"鲶鱼"等.就将来而言,人民币汇改仍将是推动我国金融创新与发展的重要力量,但随着资本账户的进一步开放和汇率弹性的进一步增加,也将会增加我国金融市场的不稳定性和金融风险.     

从亚洲外汇市场演变看人民币国际化进展

在2001—2004期间,亚洲货币的外汇交易量增长比全球市场更加迅速,其中人民币外汇交易增长特别强劲。对人民币未来预期因素似乎正在加入到美元日元即期汇率形成机制中并对亚洲外汇市场施加着重要影响。总体看来,具有更加弹性汇率的亚洲货币将以有效汇率为导向进行交易,美元的影     

我国股票市场市盈率合理变动性探析

本文通过比较国内外股市的市盈率,发现我国股市市盈率偏高、波动幅度大,然后从宏观和微观角度分析了产生这种现象的具体原因。进而考虑到我国投资者的投资理念并根据我国股市的实际情况推算出我国股市市盈率合理变动区间,并得出我国市盈率虽偏高但具有阶段合理性。最后,本文提出了解决市盈率偏高和波动大的一些建议,这将对人们正确认识我国股票市场市盈率合理变动性具有一定的实践意义。     

A re-examination of the forward exchange rate unbiasedness hypothesis

A Re-Examination of the Forward Exchange Rate Unbiasedness Hypothesis. — This paper applies the Phillips and Hansen estimation and inference procedures to re-examine the hypothesis that the forward exchange rate is an unbiased predictor of the future spot exchange rate. The results indicate that the 90-day forward exchange rate is not an unbiased predictor. However, the 90-day forward and future spot exchange rates are cointegrated. Only for the U.K. pound/U.S. dollar exchange rate is there an error correction representation. Overall, however, the evidence is consistent with the hypothesis that risk-averse agents in the forward foreign exchange market form expectations rationally.     

China＇s Exchange Rate and Financial Repression： The Conflicted Emergence of the RMB as an International Currency

Instability in the worm dollar standard, as most recently manifested in the US Federal Reserve＇s near-zero interest rate policy, has caused consternation in emerging markets with naturally higher interest rates. China has been provoked into speeding RMB ＂internationalization ＂; that is, opening up domestic financial markets to reduce its dependence on the US dollar for invoicing trade and making international payments. However, despite rapid percentage growth in offshore financial markets in RMB, the Chinese authorities are essentially trapped into maintaining exchange controls （reinforced by financial repression in domestic interest rates） to avoid an avalanche of foreign capital inflows that would threaten inflation and asset price bubbles by driving nominal interest rates on RMB assets down further. Because a floating （appreciating） exchange rate could attract even more hot money inflows, the People＇s Bank of China should focus on keeping the yuan/dollar rate stable so as to encourage naturally high wage increases to help balance China ＂s international competitiveness. However, further internationalization of the RMB, as with the proposed Shanghai pilot free trade zone, is best deferred until world interest rates rise to more normal levels.