Fixed Exchange Rates and Disinflation in Emerging Markets: How Large Is the Effect?

We examine developing countries which have institutional quality ratings for the effects of exchange rate rigidity on inflation. The level of institutional development exerts no effect on the impact of currency regimes. However, the interaction of institutional quality and exchange rates has, in the most plausible specifications, a negative impact on inflation. This suggests that fixed exchange rates exert at most a contingent effect on inflation, and indicates that countries in Eastern Europe and Latin America contemplating currency pegs would be better off improving institutional quality prior to adopting the euro or dollar and expecting a large subsequent disinflationary effect. JEL no.  F31, O11     

International interest rates and US monetary policy announcements: Evidence from Hong Kong and Singapore

This paper investigates the responses of market interest rates to US monetary policy announcements for the US and two emerging economies, Hong Kong and Singapore which are similar on many respects but have experienced opposite exchange rate regimes in the last twenty years. Our results, based on market expectations extracted from federal fund futures rates, document that FOMC announcements significantly affect the term structure of interest rate in the US and both Asian countries. Further, international interest rate differentials around FOMC meeting dates tend to be negative for short maturities with the impact gradually dissipating as bond maturity increases. Finally, for the case of Singapore, we find that domestic interest rates react to both external and domestic monetary policy announcements with a magnitude that is larger over the full bond maturity spectrum for domestic announcements. These results are robust to time-varying futures risk premia and alternative measures of interest rates expectations.     

Asymmetric volatility in the foreign exchange markets

We examine the presence or absence of asymmetric volatility in the exchange rates of Australian dollar (AUD), Euro (EUR), British pound (GBP) and Japanese yen (JPY), all against US dollar. Our investigation is based on a variant of the heterogeneous autoregressive realized volatility model, using daily realized variance and return series from 1996 to 2004. We find that a depreciation against USD leads to significantly greater volatility than an appreciation for AUD and GBP, whereas the opposite is true for JPY. Relative to volatility on days following a positive one-standard-deviation return, volatility on days following a negative one-standard-deviation return is higher by 6.6% for AUD, 6.1% for GBP, and 21.2% for JPY. The realized volatility of EUR appears to be symmetric. These results are robust to the removal of jump component from realized volatility and the sub-samplings defined by structural-changes. The asymmetry in AUD, GBP and JPY appears to be embedded in the continuous component of realized volatility rather than the jump component.     

What do interest rates reveal about the functioning of real business cycle models?

This paper begins by documenting the extent to which the predictions of standard Real Business Cycle (RBC) models are incompatible with observed movements in real interest rates. The main finding of the paper is that extending the baseline model to include habit persistence in consumption and adjustment costs to capital significantly improves the model's empirical performance. In our evaluation of the model's performance, we take special care of estimating and testing predictions of the model using both moments drawn directly from the data and moments calculated after identifying shocks to the stochastic trend.     

Commodity currencies

This paper looks at real exchange rate behavior by focusing on three OECD economies (Australia, Canada, and New Zealand) where primary commodities constitute a significant share of their exports. For Australia and New Zealand especially, we find that the US dollar price of their commodity exports (generally exogenous to these small economies) has a strong and stable influence on their floating real rates, with the magnitude of the effects consistent with predictions of standard theoretical models. However, after controlling for commodity price shocks, there is still a purchasing power parity puzzle in the residual. The results here are relevant to developing commodity-exporting countries as they liberalize their capital markets and move towards floating exchange rates.     

Catching up: The role of demand, supply and regulated price effects on the real exchange rates of four accession countries

The main aim of this paper is to examine the exchange rate behaviour of a group of four transitional, EU accession countries, with a view to making policy recommendations regarding their full accession to the European Monetary Union. We employ a dynamic OLS panel estimator to investigate the relative importance of demand and supply influences on the exchange rates of these countries. Our analysis shows that both supply‐ and demand‐side effects are important for the accession countries, although their overall effect on inflation differentials and competitiveness seems to be small. An additional focus of the paper is the examination of the role that administrated, or regulated, prices and the productivity of the distribution sector play in the real exchange rate dynamics. Using a unique database we show that administrative prices have been a powerful force behind price and real exchange developments for our group of accession countries. The distribution sector is shown to have an independent effect on the internal price ratio over and above that generated by the Balassa–Samuelson effect.     

Post-euro EU and US interest rates and foreign exchange rates: Are they in harmony or in disarray?

This paper focuses on: (1) how a select set of financial and economic factors could set the path for interest rates and foreign exchange rates, and (2) whether the resultant realized interest and exchange rates would be in harmony or in disarray. Using post-euro data for the EU and the US, an array of monetary rules is examined. In particular, the paper investigates whether the original and the extended Taylor rules provide an explanation of the dynamics of the EU monetary system since the inception of the euro. Our findings indicate that the EU and the US monetary responses are not the same and that exchange rates play a significant role.     

名义工资粘性与货币政策传导机制

货币政策的传导机制包括两个环节。第一个环节是货币供给作用于总需求，第二个环节是总需求作用于产出。在第二个环节，需求的变化能否引起产出的调整取决于名义粘性的存在性及其强弱。名义粘性包括工资粘性和价格粘性，工资粘性是价格粘性存在的前提条件，所以名义工资粘性是解释货币产出效应的基础。中国劳动力市场在不完全竞争的基础上具有一些特质，因而工资粘性很强并且形成的微观原因很特殊。极强的工资粘性保证了货币政策在第二环节的效果。这一结论为分析影响货币政策效果的因素找到了一个突破口，也为进一步优化货币政策传导机制找到了方向。     

马克思和凯恩斯的比较：有效需求问题探源

有效需求问题是市场经济或现代资本主义经济的核心问题。与强调技术关系分析的主流新古典理论不同，马克思经济学和凯恩斯经济学基于市场经济或资本主义竞争关系的博弈规则，表明了资本主义有效需求问题的根源，即利润率的下降或经济衰退来自于过高的资本存量价值或扭曲的收入分配。当前，有效需求问题也是我国宏观经济的核心问题，借鉴两位学者的分析解决我国市场经济的有效需求问题，将具有重要的理论意义和现实意义。     

利用多媒体技术提高实验课有效教学的探讨

教育在推进人类社会文明的进程中，不断汲取、运用现代化教学手段，进行有效教学，培养人才。文章提出了什么是有效教学，并对传统教学方式与多媒体教学方式进行比较，探索了如何利用现代化教学手段一多媒体技术，设计教学过程，提高实验课有效教学的方法和思路。