Industry‐specific Real Effective Exchange Rates and Export Price Competitiveness: The Cases of Japan,China, and Korea

This paper constructs a new dataset of the industry‐specific real effective exchange rate, based on the producer price indices, for Japan, China, and Korea on a monthly basis from January 2001 to February 2013 in order to provide a better indicator for export price competitiveness. By conducting simulation analysis, we found that Korean electrical machinery firms substantially improved their cost competitiveness by lowering their production costs during the Korean won appreciation period, while Japanese firms' large plant investment caused by management misjudgments led to excessive production capacity, which resulted in the deterioration of Japanese export competitiveness. A structural vector autoregression analysis also reveals that industry differences of cost competitiveness as well as nominal exchange rate changes have significant impact on export performances of Japan and Korea.     

“Large” versus “Small” Players: A Closer Look at the Dynamics of Speculative Attacks

What is the role of “large players” (e.g., hedge funds) in speculative attacks? Recent work suggests that large players move early to induce smaller agents to attack. However, many observers argue that large players move late in order to benefit from interest‐rate differentials. We propose a model in which large players can do both. Using data on currency trading by foreign (large) and local (small) players, we find that foreign players moved last in three attacks on the Norwegian krone during the 1990s. During the attack on the Swedish krona after the Russian moratorium in 1998, foreign players moved early. Gains by delaying attack were small, however, because interest rates did not increase.