Testing the relative purchasing power parity hypothesis: the case of Korea

This study examines the relative purchasing power parity (PPP) hypothesis using the data from the Korean won–US dollar and the Korean won–Japanese yen foreign exchange markets. We extract proxies for inflation from stock market returns of Korea, the United States and Japan based on the method used by Chowdhry, Roll and Xia in 2005. We explicitly test the relative PPP hypothesis in light of the short-run price volatility using monthly, bimonthly and quarterly data from 1 January 1998 to 31 December 2012. Our findings suggest that the empirical test results from the entire sample period do not support the relative PPP hypothesis. However, the results from the sample period excluding the Asian Financial Crisis period show that the relative PPP hypothesis holds for the Korean won–US dollar market with a moderate magnitude of inflation impact, but not for the Korean won–Japanese yen market. Abrupt changes in exchange rates during the crisis period may have affected the relationship between inflation and exchange rates. This result also suggests that factors other than inflation might have affected the Korean won–Japanese yen exchange rate.     

Sources of Exchange Rate Movements in Japan: Is the Exchange Rate a Shock‐Absorber or a Source of Shock?

This paper investigates the sources of movements of the yen–dollar exchange rate using a structural vector autoregression (VAR) with a combination of short‐run and long‐run zero restrictions. We find that real shocks dominate nominal shocks in explaining the exchange rate movements, with relative real demand shocks as the major contributor. The exchange rate market does not seem to be a major source of disturbances to the Japanese economy. The overall results support the view that the bilateral dollar exchange rate in Japan is a shock‐absorber rather than a source of shocks.     

Return patterns of South Korean stocks following large price shocks

This study tests the market efficiency of the South Korean stock market by examining returns on stocks of the constituents of the KOSPI 50 from 2000 to 2014 following large 1-month price decreases and increases. An exponential GARCH (EGARCH) event study framework is used to analyse the stock returns. The results show that large price shocks, positive and negative, are likely to be followed by positive market returns. Moreover, the results show an increase in the beta of stocks in the years following a large price shock. The overall results therefore support the Uncertain Information Hypothesis. However, beginning in 2008, return patterns more closely reflect those hypothesised by the Efficient Market Hypothesis, possibly due to increased participation by international investors. The observed returns following large price increases and decreases can be partially explained by changes in the Korean won to US dollar exchange rate and the trading behaviour of foreign investors.     

Monetary Shocks and Real Exchange Rate Hysteresis: Evidence from the G-7 Countries

Long-run monetary neutrality specifies that nominal disturbances do not affect long-run real exchange rates. However, the "over depreciation" of the US dollar in the late 1980s, after its strong appreciation earlier in the decade, suggested to a number of observers that nominal disturbances alter long-run real exchange rates; that is, money supply shocks entail real exchange rate hysteresis. Using data from the G-7 countries and the post-1973 float, the paper measures the long-run effects of relative money supply disturbances on real US dollar exchange rates. Little evidence of hysteretic monetary policy effects is found.     

Forward Speculation, Excess Returns, and Exchange Rate Variability: The Role of Risk Premiums

The paper reconsiders the unbiasedness hypothesis in the foreign exchange market. Within the context of a conventional model of exchange rates, risk premium shocks are constrained to have no permanent effects on the spot rate. Using monthly data from the post-floating period, the paper estimates risk premiums for the dollar rates of the yen, mark, and pound. Risk premium innovations seem to explain a modest proportion of short-term variability of exchange rate changes and excess returns. However, risk premiums may explain serial correlations in excess returns.     

Financial Instability under a Flexible Exchange Rate*

Many governments in developing countries contemplate the possibility of increasing the flexibility of their exchange rates despite having accumulated substantial dollar‐denominated debt. Using a model of corporate dollar debt in which the future exchange rate is uncertain, this paper studies the financial risks that might arise as a consequence of increased exchange rate flexibility. Since a firm may default on its debt either because its dollar income is too low or because investors refuse to roll over its debt, the measure of the overall risk of default should take into account both factors, as well as their interaction. Solving the model for the no‐default rational expectations equilibrium, we find that a small risk of insolvency may bring about a substantial risk of illiquidity.     

Factors Determining the Exchange Rate Movement under a Partial Capital Mobility Regime

The study examines the rupee–US dollar exchange rate (Rs/$) behaviour in the presence of increasing and ample capital inflows in the post-reform period in India. Using monthly data (1994:4 to 2007:8) the study estimates a basic exchange rate model in a time series framework in order to assess the relative significance of capital inflows in the presence of interest rate, inflation rate and growth rate differentials and other factors (forward exchange rate/expected exchange rate) in influencing the rupee–dollar exchange rate behaviour. It finds the dominance of foreign institutional investments affecting the rupee–dollar exchange rate and, to a certain extent, it is seen that the influence of the growth rate differential affects the exchange rate behaviour in India.     

Tobin Tax and Volatility: A Threshold Quantile Autoregressive Regression Framework

From an original data set on the euro–dollar and on the won–dollar currency pairs (2008–2010), we conduct a threshold quantile autoregressive model to explain the role of a Tobin tax (TT) on the exchange rate volatility, taking into account two types of nonlinearity (regimes and quantiles). We find evidence that the impact of a TT would not be monotonic. A TT may be a good instrument to stabilize foreign exchange volatility only in normal times and/or in efficient markets. In contrast, a TT could be counterproductive in turbulent periods by increasing the volatility. In addition, by comparing a major currency pair (euro/dollar) and a minor currency pair (won/dollar), it appears that the potential stabilizing effect of a TT would be more clear‐cut in the low volatility regime of a major currency pair, similar to the euro/dollar. Our results do not corroborate the previous studies that derived a monotonic and positive impact of a TT on volatility.     

TRADING VOLUME,VOLATILITY, AND GARCH EFFECTS IN THE SOUTH KOREAN WON/US DOLLAR EXCHANGE MARKET: EVIDENCE FROM CONDITIONAL QUANTILE ESTIMATION*

Under the MDH, this paper investigates the asymmetry in the positive relationship between unexpected volume and volatility, and whether the unexpected volume series as a proxy for the rate of information arrival absorbs the GARCH effects. This is achieved by applying a quantile regression approach to the won/dollar exchange market with reliable data on trading volumes. Interestingly, the results show that in a freely floating exchange rate system, the positive relationship increases as exchange rate returns are higher. Contrary to previous studies, despite a significantly positive relationship, the inclusion of volumes alone does not reduce volatility persistence at medium or high levels of returns. In addition, the reform of the South Korean exchange rate system had an impact on the relationship, which occurred in response to a financial crisis.     

Is the exchange rate a shock absorber or a source of shocks? Evidence from the U.S.

We examine the stabilization role of the exchange rate in the U.S. economy using a factor augmented vector autoregression model. We find that exchange rate shock explains a large fraction of the variation in exchange rate and transmits major disturbances to the real economy. Further, we find that demand and supply shocks explain less than a quarter of the exchange rate movement. We provide robust evidence that although the exchange rate plays some role as a shock absorber, its role as an independent source of shocks is more dominant for the U.S. economy. The foreign exchange market breeds its own shocks which are destabilizing not only to the value of the dollar but to the overall economy as well. Our results suggest that policymakers need to take foreign exchange market fluctuations into account when making macroeconomic policy decisions.     

Exchange rate fluctuations and labour market adjustments in Canadian manufacturing industries

We estimate the link between exchange rate fluctuations and the labour input of Canadian manufacturing industries. The analysis is based on a dynamic model of labour demand and the econometric strategy employs a panel two‐step approach for cointegrating regressions. Our data are drawn from a panel of 20 manufacturing industries from the KLEMS database and cover a long sample period that includes all cycles of appreciation and depreciation of the Canadian dollar over the last 50 years. Our results indicate that exchange rate fluctuations have significant long‐term effects on the labour input of Canada's manufacturing industries, especially for trade‐oriented industries, but that these long‐term impacts materialize very gradually following shocks.     

Cointegration,structural breaks and monetary fundamentals of the Dollar/Yen Exchange

This paper reexamines the empirical performance of monetary exchange rate models for the dollar/yen exchange rate. We focus on the character of a potential long-run relationship between exchange rates and fundamentals. Using monthly data from 1976:01 to 2007:12 this paper applies a novel time-varying coefficient approach which allows a distinction between breaks in the cointegration vector and instabilities in the adjustment coefficients. We are able to show that most of the observed breakpoints can be traced back to major policy changes or specific economic developments. Our findings also show that macroeconomic fundamentals do matter for the U.S. dollar/Japanese yen exchange rate, but in different ways over different periods of time.     

Firm Dynamics in Retail Trade: The Response of Canadian Retailers to Exchange Rate Shocks

We use comprehensive firm‐level data to estimate the responses of heterogeneous Canadian retail firms to real exchange rate movements. Our analysis focuses on a period characterized by large fluctuations in the Canadian dollar, providing an opportunity to quantify both intensive and extensive margin responses in retail industries to real exchange rate shocks and to examine how those responses differ across firms, locations, and sub‐industries. Our results indicate that a real Canadian currency appreciation significantly reduces a retailer's sales, employment, and profits. The strength of this negative effect is decreasing in the distance of a retailer from the US‐Canada border. We do not find evidence of a strong relationship between real exchange rate movements and the number of operating firms nor the probability of firm survival. These findings are consistent with the view that a real Canadian dollar appreciation increases cross‐border shopping by Canadians, resulting in a negative demand shock for Canadian retailers, and the dominant response by firms to such a shock is through the intensive margin.     

Nonlinear Mean-Reversion in Real Exchange Rates: Toward a Solution To the Purchasing Power Parity Puzzles

We fit nonlinearly mean-reverting models to real dollar exchange rates over the post-Bretton Woods period, consistent with a theoretical literature on transactions costs in international arbitrage. The half lives of real exchange rate shocks, calculated through Monte Carlo integration, imply faster adjustment speeds than hitherto recorded. Monte Carlo simulations reconcile our results with the large empirical literature on unit roots in real exchange rates by showing that when the real exchange rate is nonlinearly mean reverting, standard univariate unit root tests have low power, while multivariate tests have much higher power to reject a false null hypothesis.     

人民币汇率动态运行机制分析

基于Frankel—Wei模型构建了VC—FW模型,并利用VC—FW模型对人民币汇率在2003年4月至2007年7月期间的动态运行机制进行了实证分析。研究结果表明,人民币汇率的运行是一个动态变化过程,虽然在2005年7月21日人民币汇率改革后的相当长时期内,人民币汇率仍倾向于“软”盯住美元,但人民币汇率制度正缓慢地向具有更大汇率弹性的参考一篮子货币的管理浮动汇率制度转变,且2007年人民币兑美元浮动区间的扩大加速了这种转变。同时,分形分析结果表明,与同时宣布实行管理浮动汇率制度的马来西亚相比,人民币汇率运行的灵活性比林吉特强。     

大宗商品价格变化与汇率波动的动态关系——兼论中国外汇储备结构调整

2008年全球金融危机以来,大宗商品价格变化与一些大宗商品输出国货币汇率的波动态势较为一致。这是偶然巧合还是必然联系?本文利用VEC向量误差修正模型等对相关数据进行了实证分析后表明,2008年以来,大宗商品价格上升对澳大利亚、加拿大等大宗商品输出国货币汇率有正面推动作用。基于此,本文建议:为降低外汇储备风险,中国需要适时增加大宗商品输出国货币和资产在外汇储备中的比重,同时相应减持美元和美元资产。     

The Volatility of Real Exchange Rates: The Australian Case

This paper presents an empirical investigation into factors underlying the real U.S.-Australian dollar exchange rate. We find that the random walk model of the real exchange rate can be improved by various GARCH specifications. In particular, we find that the estimated risk premium from a GARCH-M model is not robust to model specification. When the model is extended to include the $US/Yen real exchange rate and an index of commodity prices the GARCH-in-mean term is no longer significant. The additional variables seem to account for the increased volatility of the real exchange rate in the post-1983 period. Somewhat surprisingly, we find that changes in the Australian term spread and US-Australian interest rate differential have little or no explanatory power for the real exchange rate.     

China's Exchange Rate Policy and Its Trade Balance with the US

This paper investigates the claim that China's exchange rate policy causes the US trade deficit with China to grow. Although there is no evidence that changes in the exchange rate cause the trade deficit to rise in the short run, a statistically significant long‐run relationship between the RMB/dollar exchange rate and the US trade deficit with China is detected. As the value of the dollar declines (or RMB appreciates), ceteris paribus, so does the trade deficit. Hence, there is a need for China to adjust its exchange rate policy to help reduce the ever mounting US trade deficit.     

参考一篮子货币的人民币汇率形成机制研究——基于人民币有效汇率目标的分析

文章主要研究如何建立参考一篮子货币的汇率制度,首先分析了人民币对美元汇率、人民币对非美元货币和人民币有效汇率之间的关系。其次研究了从人民币钉住美元货币汇率向参考一篮子货币汇率制度(人民币有效汇率目标)的过渡,以及建立一篮子货币汇率机制的方法和实证模拟研究,并考察了人民币汇率的波动幅度。最后文章认为人民币汇率制度的市场化改革是我国汇率体制改革的最终目标,并给出了本文的主要结论。     

German Exchange Rate Exposure at DAX and Aggregate Levels, International Trade and the Role of Exchange Rate Adjustment Costs

Abstract. This article analyses value changes of German stock market companies in response to movements of the US dollar. The approach followed in this work extends the standard means of measuring exchange rate exposure in several ways, e.g. by using multifactor modelling instead of augmented Capital Asset Pricing Model, application of moving window panel regressions and orthogonalization of overall market risk vis-à-vis currency risk. A further innovation lies in testing the theoretical implications of exchange rate adjustment costs (hedging costs) for firm values and economic exposure. Based on time series and panel data of German Deutsche Aktien Xchange companies, Deutsche Mark/dollar rates and macroeconomic factors, we find a rather unstable, time-variant exposure of German stock market companies. Dollar sensitivity is positively affected by the ratio of exports/gross domestic product (GDP) and negatively affected by imports/GDP. Moreover, as expected from theoretical findings, firm values and exchange rate exposure are significantly reduced by adjustment costs depending on the distance of the exchange rate from the expected long-run mean.