UNIFICATION OF CHINA'S FOREIGN EXCHANGE RATES

This paper studies China's foreign exchange market before and after the 1994 unification of the official and swap exchange rates. Examining segmentation as well as linkages among the foreign exchange adjustment centers (FEACs) reveals that the linkages were not strong enough to eliminate or narrow price differentials among FEACs. Hence, improving the foreign exchange market's efficiency requires a reform to unify the swap rates. This paper discusses the unification's implications for inflation, monetary policy, and current account convertibility.     

FEDERAL BUDGET DEFICITS, MONEY, AND EXCHANGE RATES

The dollar's strength during the 1980s appears to many—particularly as reported in the financial press—to have been directly linked to the decade's large budget deficits and the subsequent increase in the stock of federal debt outstanding. The popular argument is that the budget deficit and the growth of federal government credit market demand caused U.S. interest rates to rise over that period, inducing large capital inflows from abroad to finance the deficit. According to the argument, the capital inflows caused the dollar to appreciate. Despite the argument's popularity, the empirical literature does not strongly support it. Evidence on the relationship between the federal deficit and the dollar is at best mixed.
This article reconsiders the effects of federal budget deficits on the exchange rate. The analysis involves estimating a vector autoregressive (VAR) model of exchange rates that includes monetary, fiscal, and price level variables. Within the VAR framework, impulse analysis traces the dynamic response of exchange rates to various budget deficit measures.
The analysis finds that deficits do not directly Granger cause exchange rates, but it also finds evidence of an indirect effect working through the money supply and price level. Moreover, the analysis reveals some evidence that foreign exchange markets are forward looking and react to expected budget deficits. The innovations accounting and impulse analysis also suggest a forward-looking dynamic relationship between deficits and exchange rates, but the relationship is sensitive to the ordering of the variables.     

ROBUST ESTIMATIONS OF EQUILIBRIUM EXCHANGE RATES WITHIN THE G20: A PANEL BEER APPROACH

This paper is concerned with the robustness of equilibrium exchange rate estimations based on the BEER approach for a set of both industrial and emerging countries. The robustness is studied in four directions, successively. First, we investigate the impact of using alternative proxies for relative productivity. Second, we analyze the impact of estimating the equilibrium equation on one single panel covering G20 countries, or separately for G7 and non-G7 countries. Third, we measure the influence of the choice of the numeraire on the derivation of bilateral equilibrium rates. Finally, we study the temporal robustness of the estimations by dropping one or 2 years from the estimation period. Our main conclusion is that BEER estimations are quite robust to these successive tests, although at one point of time misalignments can differ by several percentage points depending on the methodology. The choice of the productivity proxy is the most sensible one, followed by the country sample. In contrast, the choice of the numeraire and the time sample have a relatively limited impact on estimated misalignments.     

THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE BLACK MARKET AND OFFICIAL EXCHANGE RATES: AN EXAMINATION OF LONG-RUN DYNAMICS IN INDIA

This study is the first to use Johansen's cointegration approach for India in the analysis of the long‐term dynamics between the black and official exchange rates for the period 1953–1993. The study also estimates the long‐run elasticity of the official rate with respect to the black market rate. As monthly data over 40 years are used, and a more robust methodology is employed, the results are likely to be more reliable as compared with the earlier work on India. The results of our study suggest that while there is a long‐term relationship between the two rates, the direction of causality is from the black rate to the official exchange rate. This is plausible in the Indian context where policy has generally lagged behind events in the black market. The hypothesis of a constant black market premium is rejected, implying that there is a mismatch between the percentage change in the official exchange rate and the percentage change in the black market rate.     

BLACK MARKET EXCHANGE RATES AND CAPITAL MOBILITY IN ASIAN ECONOMIES

This paper examines whether foreign exchange black markets have eroded the effectiveness of capital controls and contributed to an increase in the effective degree of capital mobility in a sample of Asian countries. Comparing the uncovered interest parity forecast errors between the official and black market exchange rates suggests that in those countries with more stringent capital controls, foreign exchange black markets have reached a maturity level to threaten the effectiveness of those controls.     

MONETARY POLICY ACTIVISM UNDER MANAGED-FLOATING EXCHANGE RATES: A CROSS-COUNTRY COMPARISON

This paper assesses the degree and pattern of monetary policy activism in the United States, Canada, West Germany, the United Kingdom, and Japan during the recent period in which managed-floating exchange rates prevailed. Floating exchange rates enhance the potency of a discretionary monetary policy. Yet central banks in these countries shifted toward less discretionary monetary targeting during the late 1970s in response to rising inflationary pressures and expectations. But whether such targeting actually reduced policy activism is unclear since targets were expressed in wide ranges and often were missed. Following 1981, at least three of these countries–the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom–reverted to an avowedly more discretionary pattern of response to changes in real demand pressures, interest rates, and exchange rates. Since mid-1986, Germany, the United Kingdom, and Japan–and, to a lesser extent, Canada–have intervened heavily in the foreign exchange market and so have greatly increased their official dollar holdings. Moreover, through August 1987, the effects of this intervention on these countries' domestic money supplies apparently have been sterilized only partially.     

EMPIRICAL TESTS OF MEAN REVERSION IN REAL EXCHANGE RATES: A SURVEY

Since the development of cointegration and unit root tests, these procedures have been applied widely to the relationship between nominal exchange rates and relative prices. The findings vary considerably for different time periods, exchange rate regimes and test procedures. These results have not previously been the subject of a comprehensive survey or evaluation. Suggestions are offered for the future development of research in this area.     

ASIAN REAL EXCHANGE RATES AND OIL PRICES: A COINTEGRATION ANALYSIS UNDER STRUCTURAL BREAKS

We examine the long‐run relationship between Asian real exchange rates and oil prices in the presence of structural breaks. The relevance of considering breaks is demonstrated by utilizing the Johansen et al. procedure that allows for up to two predetermined breaks. Using conventional tests that do not consider breaks reveals no evidence of cointegration. However, the Johansen et al. procedure clearly demonstrates the importance of considering breaks and provides strong support for a stable long‐run relationship in all but Japan and the Philippines. Moreover, the results suggest evidence of bi‐directional causality in Malaysia and Thailand, uni‐directional causality from exchange rates to oil prices in Korea, the Philippines, and Singapore, uni‐directional causality from oil prices to the exchange rate in Indonesia, and no evidence of causality in Japan.