Currency Options and Export-Flexible Firms

This paper examines the production and hedging decisions of a globally competitive firm under exchange rate uncertainty. The firm is risk averse and possesses export flexibility in that it can distribute its output to either the domestic market or a foreign market after observing the realized spot exchange rate. To hedge against its exchange rate risk exposure, the firm can trade fairly priced currency call options of an arbitrary strike price. We show that both the separation and the full‐hedging results hold if the strike price of the currency call options is set equal to the ratio of the domestic and foreign selling prices. Otherwise, neither result holds. Specifically, we show that the optimal level of output is always less than that of an otherwise identical firm that is risk neutral. Furthermore, an under‐hedge (over‐hedge) is optimal whenever the strike price of the currency call options is below (above) the ratio of the domestic and foreign selling prices.     

Currency Hedging and Siegel's Paradox: On Black's Universal Hedging Rule*

In an international multicurrency context, with nonstochastic inflation, equilibrium asset pricing models dictate that all investors should hold a combination of their national risk-free bill and the world market portfolio partly hedged against currency risk. We show that the equilibrium hedge ratios are not universal and depend on investors' preferences and relative wealth. So-called universal hedging rules are devoid of solid theoretical underpinning and practical applicability.     

Exports and Indirect Hedging of Foreign Currency Risk

We present a model of a risk-averse competitive exporting firm under exchange rate risk. Direct hedging instruments are not available. However, there are domestic assets whose prices are correlated to the foreign currency. We consider a market for futures contracts in these domestic assets and investigate the firm's indirect hedging and export policy. It is shown that the availability of many financial instruments correlated with foreign exchange may, under some circumstances, provide the same results as a perfect hedge.
JEL Classification Numbers: F21, F31.     

Small Leading Firms*

We formally analyze the question of whether a price leader must control a large share of the market. Our main result is that if other producers have rising marginal costs and behave as price takers, even the smallest firm in a competitive industry with a rising supply curve can enhance its profits by cutting output and raising price, becoming a price leader. Therefore, we would expect pure competition to be destroyed under these technological conditions.     

论人民币国际化进程中的货币替代

人民币国际化是一个从周边化、区域化到国际化,从国家货币、区域货币到国际货币的渐进动态过程.随着我国经济的快速发展和对外开放交流程度的提高,国内对美元等国际货币支付结算的需求增加,出现美元等替代人民币的"美元化",同时,随着中国-东盟自由贸易区的建立和发展,人民币在周边国家或地区的流通规模越来越大,进而出现替代周边国家货币的"人民币化"货币反替代现象.因而,货币替代与货币反替代也是人民币国际化渐进进程中的必然现象,而这种现象对我国经济的影响有利也有弊,本文对此加以分析并提出应对措施.     

Lobbying For Tariff Policies*

This paper fully specifies the political and economic markets in which trade policies are formulated and lobbying efforts are determined. In the political market, the winner of a two-candidate race chooses policies, and both candidates have incomplete information about the nonpolicy biases of voters. Voting is probabilistic and lobbying consists of informing candidates of the lobby members' nonpolicy voting biases. Economic markets are described by a Heckscher-Ohlin model. the determinants of lobbying expenditures are developed from these microfoundations instead of being introduced in an ad hoc manner.     

Inter‐Jurisdictional Competition for Firms*

Regions inhabited with an immobile population of disabled and able individuals compete to attract mobile firms that provide jobs. The redistributive goal of regional governments is to support the disabled, who cannot work. Able individuals may work, be involuntary unemployed because of frictions in the labor market, or choose to be voluntary unemployed. Labor force participation decisions depend on regional redistributive policies. Both the size of workforce and tax on firms affect profits and therefore, firms’ location decisions. Allowing regions to engage in tax competition may be efficient. If regions cannot tax firms, they compete by implementing inefficient redistributive policies.     

A Theory of Trade Secrets in Firms*

This article provides a simple theoretical model of trade secrets in hierarchical firms. A crucial assumption is that each manager has access to trade secrets pertaining to his own hierarchical level as well as to all lower levels. The article explores some implications of this assumption for optimal degree of trade secrets accumulation and protection as well as for the wage structure in firms. In addition, the model implies that managers may have an incentive to overpay their subordinates and protect their firms’ trade secrets too much.     

Learning,Large Deviations,And Recurrent Currency Crises*

This article studies a version of Obstfeld's (Journal of International Economics 43 (1997), 61–77) “escape clause” model. The model is calibrated to produce three rational expectations equilibria. Two of these equilibria are E‐stable and one is unstable. Dynamics are introduced by assuming that agents must learn about the government's decision rule. It is assumed they do this using a stochastic approximation algorithm. It turns out that as a certain parameter describing the sensitivity of beliefs to new information gets small, the algorithm converges to a small noise diffusion process. The dynamics of exchange rate changes are then characterized using large deviation techniques from Freidlin and Wentzell (Random Perturbations of Dynamical Systems, Second Edition, Berlin: Springer‐Verlag, 1998). These methods describe the sense in which the limiting distribution of exchange rate changes is approximated by a two‐state Markov‐Switching process, where the two states correspond to the two E‐stable equilibria. The model is calibrated to the exchange rate histories of Argentina, Brazil, and Mexico. Currency crises in these countries resemble the predicted “escape routes” of the model. A key feature of these escape routes is that expectations of a devaluation erupt suddenly, without large contemporaneous shocks. This is consistent with evidence showing that crises are often poorly anticipated by financial markets.     

Currency Misalignments and Exchange Rate Regimes in Emerging and Developing Countries*

Pegged exchange rates are often pointed out as more prone to risk of overvaluation, because their real exchange rates have a tendency to appreciate. We check this assumption empirically over a large sample of emerging and developing countries, by using two databases for de facto classifications by Levy‐Yeyati and Sturzenegger (2003 ) and by Reinhart and Rogoff (2004 ). We assess currency misalignments by estimating real equilibrium exchange rates taking into account a Balassa effect and the impact of net foreign assets. Pegged currencies are shown to be more overvalued than floating ones.     

Vertically Related Markets: Export Rivalry Between DC and LDC Firms*

We present a model of export rivalry in vertically related markets where a DC firm produces a high-quality good as well as a key input utilized by an LDC firm to produce a low-quality export good. the DC firm acts as a Stackelberg leader by setting the price of the input and the quantity of its export good. We show that the DC firm's decision on vertical supply depends on the cost, demand, and quality parameters of both producers, and that the LDC government should tax either its final good exports or its key input imports.     

Some Implications of Imperfect Competition For Recent Trade Theory*

This paper argues that in a general-equilibrium context, it is not sensible for oligopolistic (and mono-polistically competitive) firms to maximize profit, because the outcome would be sensitive to the choice of the numeraire. the natural objective of these firms would be to maximize the utility of the shareholders if the shareholders are identical. I show that even if each firm takes the representative individual's marginal utility of income as given, the outcome of the utility maximization objective is Pareto optimal, and in equilibrium, each firm equates price with marginal cost.     

Experience Rating versus Employment Protection Laws in a Model where Firms Monitor Workers*

While layoff costs in the U.S. are mostly due to experience‐rated unemployment insurance, layoff costs in European labour markets are primarily a consequence of employment protection laws. In this paper we compare the effects of experience rating and employment protection laws on employment and welfare in a model where unemployment arises due to efficiency wage setting and where labour turnover is inefficiently high. We show that a revenue‐neutral introduction of experience rating reduces labour turnover and increases employment and welfare. The introduction of employment protection laws may also reduce labour turnover but employment declines.     

Export Flexibility and Hedging

The paper considers a risk-averse international firm which sells its output in either the domestic or the foreign market. The firm possesses export flexibility, and so it can choose between the domestic and export markets after considering the foreign exchange rate. It is shown that a separation property holds if the proper hedging instrument is used: the firm's production depends on market prices and technology and does not depend on its attitude towards risk nor on its expectations. A full-hedge proposition is derived.     

货币错配与银行危机和货币危机

货币错配是新兴市场在经济全球化过程中所无法避免的问题,它具有净外币负债和净外币资产两种表现形式.在新兴市场中,只要其银行体系存在大规模的货币错配,不管表现为哪一种形式,都会增加其金融体系的脆弱性;而且在宏观或微观经济基本面恶化的情况下,可能引发银行危机甚至是货币危机.此外,当出现不利冲击时,银行体系中存在货币错配将会导致其资产和负债的期限错配进一步恶化.     

浅析现阶段我国货币政策失效的原因

我国自1997年以来采取了一系列扩张性货币政策措施,这些措施的实施对于经济增长有一定的积极作用,但是并未达到预期的效果。本就货币政策失效的原因进行了分析,认为主要有以下四个原因：(1)缺乏健康的货币政策传导机制;(2)货币市场发育不完善;(3)货币供给的内生性导致货币政策的调节作用大受局限;(4)微观主体的心理预期削弱货币政策效应。     

Currency Crises and the Modified Currency Board System in Singapore

This paper argues that the currency board system, while ideal for developing countries, will need to be modified for the more advanced developing countries like Singapore. Serious conflicts between internal and external targets could be minimized if it is modified by allowing some flexibility in the exchange rate. Lessons from Singapore on controlling inflation and warding off currency attacks were drawn to support the argument.     

Hedging and diversification across commodity assets

ABSTRACT

We investigate the conditional cross effects and volatility spillover between equity markets and commodity markets (oil and gold), Fama and French HML and SMB factors, volatility index (VIX) and bonds using different multivariate GARCH specifications considering the potential asymmetry and persistence behaviours. We analyse the dynamic conditional correlation between the US equity market and a set of commodity prices and risk factors to forecast the transmission of shock to the equity market firstly, and to determine and compare the optimal hedge ratios from the different models based on the hedging effectiveness of each model. Our findings suggest that all models confirm the significant returns and volatility spillovers. More importantly, we find that GO-GARCH is the best-fit model for modelling the joint dynamics of different financial variables. The results of the current study have implications for investors: (i) the equity market displays inverted dynamics with the volatility index suggesting strong evidence of diversification benefit; (ii) of the hedging assets gold appears the best hedge for the US equity market as it has a higher hedge effectiveness than oil and bonds over time; and (iii) despite these important results, a better hedge may be obtained by using well-selected firm sized and profitability-based portfolios.     

Passthrough of Exchange Rate and Tariffs into Import Prices of India: Currency Depreciation versus Import Liberalization*

This paper examines the extent of passthrough of exchange rate and tariff changes into import prices using sectoral panel data (at the two‐digit SITC level) for the post‐reform period in India (1990–2001). After having controlled for unobserved effects that might have an impact on the import prices by using sector dummies, we find that on average exchange rate passthrough (ERPT) is a dominant effect compared to tariff rate passthrough (TRPT) in explaining changes in India's import prices. The sectoral panel results suggest that the passthrough of exchange rates and tariff rates varies across products. ERPT into import prices is significant in 12 industries, whereas TRPT is significant only in six industries, with full passthrough. However, ERPT is incomplete only in four industries, but TRPT is incomplete in 36 industries, which means that firms exporting to India more frequently adopt strategies to maintain their market share against tariffs than against exchange rate changes. The sectoral differences in passthrough seem to be related to the sector's share in total imports and the sector's effective protection rate. Hence, India's relatively high levels of protection have an impact on the behavior of foreign exporters.