Should Estonia euroize?

Estonia has been operating a currency board arrangement tied to the deutschemark, now the euro, since 1992. Optimal currency area considerations, policy orientation and the flexibility of prices and wages in Estonia support a case for monetary union with the eurozone. But the European Union requires Estonia to wait until EU accession and subsequent Eurosystem accession before it can adopt the euro. In the meanwhile, gains expected from euroization — lower and more stable interest rates, lower transactions costs in trade and increased transparency, all of which would promote trade, investments and economic growth — would be forgone. In this context, the paper raises the question, should Estonia go ahead and euroize now? JEL classification: E42, E58, F33.     

Exchange-rate pass-through and market structure

We consider a situation in whichn firms located in market 1 andm firms located in market 2 each sell a commodity which is homogeneous within each market but may differ between markets. All firms sell on both markets. Each market has its own currency. The market demand functions differ. We give some basic results on the effects of exchange-rate changes and then show the following. When these markets are independent on the cost side (constant marginal costs) and demands are linear, a reduction in the number of firms (which might result from a merger) in market 1 increases the pass-through (of an appreciation of currency 2) in market 1 and decreases the pass-through in market 2. A similar occurrence in market 2 has the opposite effect. We give conditions under which, with identical economies of scope linking the markets, the sign of the price changes will be reversed when the number of foreign firms is small enough compared to the number of local firms. However, such sign reversals cannot occur in the two markets simultaneously.     

State tourism in China and USA

Schuchat, Molly G., “State Tourism in China and USA,” Annals of Tourism Research, October/December 1979, VI(4):425–434. This paper discusses the experiences available to most visitors to the Peoples Republic of China and to those visitors to the United States of America who are cultural exchange grantees. In the United States the Department of State contracts out the programming and direction of its officially invited guests to non-profit agencies that work in cooperation with a nationwide network of local volunteers. Almost all visitors to China, no matter who paid for their trip, were treated as official guests of the country, until 1978. It is only in the last year that they have been considered tourists at all. The range of contacts and experiences offered in both countries have a great deal of similarity. One focus of the paper is on what these guests (or any others not so similarly shepherded) are able to learn of countries not their own through exposure to public life. The material was gathered on visits to China in January, 1977 and September, 1978, and in interviews with programming and interpreting staffs, volunteers and grantees in Washington, D.C.     

人民币汇率定价的逆周期因子：启用时间、驱动因素与实施效果*

本文对2017年5月—2019年9月期间人民币汇率定价过程中逆周期因子的使用进行了测算，并构建非限制性VAR模型分析了中国央行两次启用逆周期因子的驱动因素和实施效果。研究发现：第一，相对于官方公布时间，两次逆周期因子调节均呈现出提前开始和滞后结束的情况，且调整幅度呈现逐渐收窄的趋势；第二，第二次逆周期因子的调节幅度大于第一次；第三，人民币汇率波动是第一次逆周期因子调节的主要驱动因素，而离岸在岸汇价差和汇率政策不确定性是第二次逆周期因子调节的主要驱动因素；第四，两次逆周期因子调节均对人民币汇率波动产生了抑制作用，但加剧了离岸市场人民币贬值预期。     

汇率风险套期比率确定方法的比较与评析

套期比率确定方法可大致分为基于回归技术和基于均值/方差理论的套期比率确定方法两类。采用新的计量分析工具来研究不完备市场中的套期保值,以及带“摩擦”的金融市场中的套期保值,将会成为现代套期保值理论新的理论领域。     

Dynamical analysis of corporate bonds based on the yield spread term-quality surface

Our aim of this research is to propose a model which estimates implied relative credit reliability from the yield spread of defaultable bonds and evaluates their spread risk. We introduce “yield spread term-quality surface” (YSTQS) which is defined on the space of duration and credit reliability of the issuers, and express their yield spread. First, we review the general pricing theorem of defaultable bonds with unpredictable recovery in the no-arbitrage context based on the external hazard rates. Second, we show that the dynamics of state variables determine the shape of the YSTQS, and they drive the YSTQS if the loss-adjusted hazard rates are described by a function of them. Finally, we show an empirical analysis of our model with daily yield spread, duration, and the credit ratings of corporate bonds.

The Policy Challenge with Floating Exchange Rates: Turkey’s Recent Experience

This paper evaluates the developments in the Turkish economy in light of the Central Bank of Turkey’s (CBT) policies during a recent period of floating exchange rate system (March 2001–July 2003). It is found that the CBT was effective in containing volatility and reducing the average inflation rate while there was a strong recovery of output. However, there are accumulated risks in the economy. Particularly, the extreme appreciation of the Turkish lira during this period and the record level of real interest rates give the impression that the current state of the economy is fragile. Unless the government accelerates the structural reform process and pursues sound fiscal policies to reduce the public sector borrowing requirement and the debt ratio, an adverse shock to the system may trigger a reversal of fortune.     

ARDL Approach to the Exchange Rate Overshooting in Taiwan

This paper re-examines Dornbusch’s (1976) sticky-price monetary model to exchange rate determination by employing both conventional Johansen’s (1988, 1990, 1994) maximum likelihood cointegration test and the ARDL Bound test by Pesaran, Shin, and Smith (2001) for the monthly data of Taiwan over the period 1986:01 ∼ 2003:04. Ambiguous results are found for the long-run equilibrium relationship between the NTD/USD exchange rate and macro fundamentals. With the advantage that ARDL Bound test incorporates both I(1) and I(0) series, we conclude our empirical evidence that there is no long-run equilibrium relationship between exchange rates and macro fundamentals. Moreover, for the short-run dynamic response, the result from the ARDL-UECM-MAIC (1, 10, 10, 8, 10) setting supports the overshooting of currency depreciation as pre-described by Dornbusch (1976). However, this overshooting phenomenon does not exist the current month, but one month after.JEL Classification: C32, B22, E44     

基于权益久期的商业银行利率风险度量技术研究

在我国的利率市场化进程中,商业银行将面临巨大的利率风险,商业银行的利率风险管理势在必行。文章全面分析了利率风险的形成和对商业银行的影响,指出久期是利率风险度量方法的必然趋势,在此基础上,引入权益久期的概念,全面衡量商业银行面临的利率风险,并对权益久期的应用环境