Showing papers on "Exchange rate published in 2007"

The Economic Lives of the Poor.

Abstract: In what turned out to be a rhetorical master-move, the 1990 World Development Report from the World Bank defined the “extremely poor” people of the world as those who are currently living on no more than $1 per day per person, measured at the 1985 purchasing power parity (PPP) exchange rate. In 1993, the poverty line was updated to $1.08 per person per day at the 1993 PPP exchange rate, which is the line we use in this paper. Poverty lines have always existed—indeed $1 per day was chosen in part because of its proximity to the poverty lines used by many poor countries.1 However the $1-a-day poverty line has come to dominate the conversations about poverty to a remarkable extent.

Roughing It Up: Including Jump Components in the Measurement, Modeling, and Forecasting of Return Volatility

Abstract: A rapidly growing literature has documented important improvements in financial return volatility measurement and forecasting via use of realized variation measures constructed from high-frequency returns coupled with simple modeling procedures. Building on recent theoretical results in Barndorff-Nielsen and Shephard (2004a, 2005) for related bi-power variation measures, the present paper provides a practical and robust framework for non-parametrically measuring the jump component in asset return volatility. In an application to the DM/$ exchange rate, the S&P500 market index, and the 30-year U.S. Treasury bond yield, we find that jumps are both highly prevalent and distinctly less persistent than the continuous sample path variation process. Moreover, many jumps appear directly associated with specific macroeconomic news announcements. Separating jump from non-jump movements in a simple but sophisticated volatility forecasting model, we find that almost all of the predictability in daily, weekly, and monthly return volatilities comes from the non-jump component. Our results thus set the stage for a number of interesting future econometric developments and important financial applications by separately modeling, forecasting, and pricing the continuous and jump components of the total return variation process.

Market Entry Costs, Producer Heterogeneity, and Export Dynamics

Abstract: As the exchange rate, foreign demand, and production costs evolve, domestic producers are continually faced with two choices: whether to be an exporter and, if so, how much to export. We develop a dynamic structural model of export supply that characterizes these two decisions. The model embodies plant-level heterogeneity in export profits, uncertainty about the determinants of future profits, and market entry costs for new exporters. Using a Bayesian Monte Carlo Markov chain estimator, we fit this model to plant-level panel data on three Colombian manufacturing industries. We obtain profit function and sunk entry cost coefficients, and use them to simulate export responses to shifts in the exchange-rate process and several types of export subsidies. In each case, the aggregate export response depends on entry costs, expectations about the exchange rate process, prior exporting experience, and producer heterogeneity. Export revenue subsidies are far more effective at stimulating exports than policies that subsidize entry costs.

International Financial Adjustment

Abstract: The paper explores the implications of a country’s external budget constraint to study the dynamics of net foreign assets and exchange rate movements. We show that deteriorations in a country’s net exports or net foreign asset position relative to their trend have to be matched either by future net export growth (the trade channel) or by future increases in the returns of the net foreign asset portfolio, a hitherto unexplored valuation channel. Using a newly constructed data set on US gross foreign positions, we find that stabilizing valuation effects contribute as much as 27% of the cyclical external adjustment. Our approach also has asset pricing implications. Our measure of external imbalance predicts net foreign asset portfolio returns one quarter to two years ahead and net exports at longer horizons. The exchange rate affects the trade balance and the valuation of net foreign assets. It is forecastable in and out of sample at one quarter and beyond. A one standard deviation increase in external imbalances predicts an annualized 4% depreciation of the exchange rate over the next quarter.

The obstinate passion of foreign exchange professionals: Technical analysis

Abstract: Technical analysis involves the prediction of future exchange rate (or other asset-price) movements from an inductive analysis of past movements. A reading of the large literature on this topic allows us to establish a set of stylised facts, including the facts that technical analysis is an important and widely used method of analysis in the foreign exchange market and that applying certain technical trading rules over a sustained period may lead to significant positive excess returns. We then analyze four arguments that have been put forward to explain the continuing widespread use of technical analysis and its apparent profitability: that the foreign exchange market may be characterised by not-fully-rational behaviour; that technical analysis may exploit the influence of central bank interventions; that technical analysis may be an efficient form of information processing; and finally that it may provide information on non-fundamental influences on foreign exchange movements. Although all of these positions may be relevant to some degree, neither non-rationality nor official interventions seem to be widespread and persistent enough to explain the obstinate passion of foreign exchange professionals for technical analysis.

Evaluating an Estimated New Keynesian Small Open Economy Model

Abstract: This paper estimates and tests a new Keynesian small open economy model in the tradition of Christiano, Eichenbaum, and Evans (2005) and Smets and Wouters (2003) using Bayesian estimation techniques on Swedish data. To account for the switch to an inflation targeting regime in 1993 we allow for a discrete break in the central bank's instrument rule. A key equation in the model - the uncovered interest rate parity (UIP) condition - is well known to be rejected empirically. Therefore we explore the consequences of modifying the UIP condition to allow for a negative correlation between the risk premium and the expected change in the nominal exchange rate. The results show that the modification increases the persistence and volatility in the real exchange rate and that this model has an empirical advantage compared with the standard UIP specification.

Exchange Rate Models Are Not as Bad as You Think

Abstract: Standard models of exchange rates, based on macroeconomic variables such as prices, interest rates, output, etc., are thought by many researchers to have failed empirically. We present evidence to the contrary. First, we emphasize the point that “beating a random walk” in forecasting is too strong a criterion for accepting an exchange rate model. Typically models should have low forecasting power of this type. We then propose a number of alternative ways to evaluate models. We examine in-sample fit, but emphasize the importance of the monetary policy rule, and its effects on expectations, in determining exchange rates. Next we present evidence that exchange rates incorporate news about future macroeconomic fundamentals, as the models imply. We demonstrate that the models might well be able to account for observed exchange-rate volatility. We discuss studies that examine the response of exchange rates to announcements of economic data. Then we present estimates of exchange-rate models in which expected present values of fundamentals are calculated from survey forecasts. Finally, we show that outof-sample forecasting power of models can be increased by focusing on panel estimation and long-horizon forecasts.

The Unsustainable US Current Account Position Revisited

Abstract: Keywords: US current account deficit, external imbalance, net foreign assets, real exchange rate, sustainability JEL Codes: F21, F32, F36, F41 ABSTRACT:We show that the when one takes into account the global equilibrium ramifications of an unwinding of the US current account deficit, currently running at more than 6% of GDP, the potential collapse of the dollar becomes considerably larger than our previous estimates (Obstfeld and Rogoff 2000a)—as much as 30% or even higher. It is true that global capital market deepening appears to have accelerated over the past decade (a fact documented by Lane and Milesi-Ferreti (2003, 2004) and recently emphasized by outgoing US Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan), and that this deepening may have helped allowed the United States to a recordbreaking string of deficits. Unfortunately, however, global capital market deepening turns out to be of only modest help in mitigating the dollar decline that will almost inevitably occur in the wake of global current account adjustment. As the analysis of our earlier papers (2000a,b) showed, and the model of this paper reinforces, adjustments to large current account shifts depend mainly on the flexibility and global integration of goods and factor markets. Whereas the dollar’s decline may be benign as in the 1980s, we argue that the current conjuncture more closely parallels the early 1970s, when the Bretton Woods system collapsed. Finally, we use our model to dispel some common misconceptions about what kinds of shifts are needed to help close the US current account imbalance. For example, faster growth abroad helps only if it is relatively concentrated in nontradable goods; faster productivity growth in foreign tradable goods will actually exacerbate the US adjustment problem.

Exchange rate pass-through in emerging markets 1

Abstract: This paper examines the degree of Exchange Rate Pass-Through (ERPT) to prices in 12 emerging markets in Asia, Latin America, and Central and Eastern Europe. Our results, based on three alternative vector autoregressive models, partly overturn the conventional wisdom that ERPT into both import and consumer prices is always higher in "emerging" than in "developed" countries. For emerging markets with only one digit inflation (most notably the Asian countries), passthrough to import and consumer prices is found to be low and not very dissimilar from the levels of developed economies. The paper also finds robust evidence for a positive relationship between the degree of the ERPT and inflation, in line with Taylor's hypothesis once two outlier countries (Argentina and Turkey) are excluded from the analysis. Finally, the presence of a positive link between import openness and ERPT, while plausible theoretically, finds only weak empirical support.

Real exchange rate levels and economic development: theoretical analysis and econometric evidence

Abstract: According to the development approach to exchange rates, competitive currencies have been a key factor in most East and Southeast Asian successful growth strategies There is also today an important empirical literature that relates overvaluations to low per capita growth rates While the econometric literature on this issue is relatively rich, theoretical analysis of channels through which real exchange rate levels could affect economic development are very scarce This paper intends to contribute to the debate by bringing more theoretical elements and providing new econometric evidence to the connections between real exchange rate levels and development

Determinants of Malaysian Trade Balance: An ARDL Bound Testing Approach

Abstract: This paper examines the short- and long-run relationships between trade balance, real exchange rates, income and money supply in the case of Malaysia. The inclusion of income and money variables in the study is purposely to examine the monetary and absorption approaches to the balance of payments beside the conventional approach of elasticity, using exchange rates. Using the bound testing approach to cointegration and error correction models, developed within an autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) framework, we investigate whether a long-run equilibrium relationship exists between trade balance and the determinants. Additionally, we adopt an innovation accounting by simulating variance decompositions (VDC) and impulse response functions (IRF) for further inferences. Using this approach, we find evidence of a long-run relationship between trade balance and income and money supply variables but not between trade balance and real exchange rate. The findings also suggest that Marshall–Lerner condit...

On the Integration of Production and Financial Hedging Decisions in Global Markets

Abstract: We study the integrated operational and financial hedging decisions faced by a global firm who sells to both home and foreign markets. Production occurs either at a single facility located in one of the markets or at two facilities, one in each market. The company has to invest in capacity before the selling season starts when the demand in both markets and the currency exchange rate are uncertain. The currency exchange rate risk can be hedged by delaying allocation of the capacity to specific markets until both the currency and demand uncertainties are resolved and/or by buying financial option contracts on the currency exchange rate when capacity commitment is made. A mean-variance utility function is used to model the firm's risk aversion in decision making. We derive the joint optimal capacity and financial option decision, and analyze the impact of the delayed allocation option and the financial options on capacity commitment and the firm's performance. We show that the firm's financial hedging strategy ties closely to, and can have both quantitative and qualitative impact on, the firm's operational strategy. The use, or lack of use of financial hedges, can go beyond affecting the magnitude of capacity levels by altering global supply chain structural choices, such as the desired location and number of production facilities to be employed to meet global demand.

Dynamic analysis between the US stock returns and the macroeconomic variables

Abstract: This study investigates the long-term and short-term relationships between the US stock price index (S&P 500) and six macroeconomic variables over the period 1975:1–1999:4. We observe that the stock prices negatively relate to the long-term interest rate, but positively relate to the money supply, industrial production, inflation, the exchange rate and the short-term interest rate. In the Granger causality sense, every macroeconomic variable causes the stock prices in the long-run but not in the short-run. Moreover, these results are also supported by the VDC, i.e. the stock prices are relatively exogenous in relation to other variables because almost 87% of its own variance is explained by its own stock even after 24 months.

Liquidity Constrained Exporters

Abstract: I propose a model of international trade with liquidity constraints. If firms must pay a fixed entry cost in order to access foreign markets, and if they face liquidity constraints to finance these costs, only those firms that have sufficient liquidity are able to export. A set of firms could profitably export, but are prevented from doing so because they lack sufficient liquidity. More productive firms that generate large liquidity from their domestic sales, and wealthier firms that inherit a large amount of liquidity, are more likely to export. This model offers a potential explanation for the apparent lack of sensitivity of exports to exchange rate fluctuations. When the exchange rate appreciates, existing exporters lose competitiveness abroad, and are forced to reduce their exports. At the same time, the value of domestic assets owned by potential exporters increases. Some liquidity constrained exporters start exporting. This dampens the anti-competitiveness impact of a currency appreciation. Under some conditions, it may reverse it altogether and increase aggregate exports. In this sense, the model is able to rationalize the co-existence of competitive devaluations and competitive revaluations.

Asset Prices and Exchange Rates

Abstract: In this paper we study the implications of introducing demand shocks and trade in goods into an otherwise standard international asset pricing model. Trade in goods gives rise to an additional channel of international propagation|through the terms of trade|absent in traditional single-good asset pricing models. The inclusion of demand shocks helps overturn many unrealistic implications of existing international flnance models in which productivity shocks are the sole source of uncertainty. Our model generates a rich set of implications on how stock, bond, and foreign exchange markets co-move. We solve the model in closed-form, which yields a system of equations that can be readily estimated empirically. Our estimation validates the main predictions of the theory.

Evidence of Carry Trade Activity

Abstract: Interest rate differentials have been a driving force behind exchange rate movements in recent years. This has focused market attention on the role of currency carry trade positions, and on the possibility that a sudden unwinding might adversely affect financial stability. However, carry trades are notoriously difficult to track in the available data. This special feature first outlines the investor base and trading strategies used in carry trades, and then explores various sources of data to gauge activity.

Tourism's Impact on Long-Run Mexican Economic Growth

Abstract: Tourism is one of the most important factors in the productivity of the Mexican economy with significant multiplier effects on economic activity. This paper investigates possible causal relationships between tourism expenditure, real exchange rate and economic growth by using quarterly data. Johansen co-integration analysis shows the existence of one cointegrated vector among real GDP, tourism expenditure, and real exchange rate where the corresponding elasticities are positive. The tourism-led growth hypothesis is confirmed through cointegration and causality testing. Expenditure is weakly exogenous to real GDP producing a more than proportional effect in growth (it means real GDP increases 60% more when expenditure in tourism is increased). Short-run Granger causality shows that causality goes from expenditure to GDP, and there is a bidirectional short-run causality between real exchange rate and real GDP. Impulse response analysis shows that a shock in expenditure produce a continuous positive effect on growth while a shock in real exchange rate produces first a negative effect and then a positive one.

Fear of Appreciation

Abstract: In recent years the term"fear of floating"has been used to describe exchange rate regimes that, while officially flexible, in practice intervene heavily to avoid sudden or large depreciations. However, the data reveals that in most cases (and increasingly so in the 2000s) intervention has been aimed at limiting appreciations rather than depreciations, often motivated by the neo-mercantilist view of a depreciated real exchange rate as protection for domestic industries. As a first step to address the broader question of whether this view delivers on its promise, the authors examine whether this"fear of appreciation"has a positive impact on growth performance in developing economies. The authors show that depreciated exchange rates appear to induce higher growth, but that the effect, rather than through import substitution or export booms as argued by the mercantilist view, works largely through thedeepening of domestic savings and capital accumulation.

The Returns to Currency Speculation in Emerging Markets

Abstract: The carry trade strategy involves selling forward currencies that are at a forward premium and buying forward currencies that are at a forward discount. We compare the payoffs to the carry trade applied to two different portfolios. The first portfolio consists exclusively of developed country currencies. The second portfolio includes the currencies of both developed countries and emerging markets. Our main empirical findings are as follows. First, including emerging market currencies in our portfolio substantially increases the Sharpe ratio associated with the carry trade. Second, bid-ask spreads are two to four times larger in emerging markets than in developed countries. Third and most dramatically, the payoffs to the carry trade for both portfolios are uncorrelated with returns to the U.S. stock market.

Trade, Quality Upgrading and Wage Inequality in the Mexican Manufacturing Sector

Abstract: This paper proposes a new mechanism linking trade and wage inequality in developing countries - the quality-upgrading mechanism - and investigates its empirical implications in panel data on Mexican manufacturing plants. In a model with heterogeneous plants and quality-differentiated goods, only the most productive plants in a country like Mexico enter the export market, they produce higher-quality goods to appeal to richer Northern consumers, and they pay high wages to attract and motivate a high-quality workforce. An exchange-rate devaluation leads initially more-productive, higher-wage plants to increase exports, upgrade quality, and raise wages relative to initially less-productive, lower-wage plants within each industry. Using the late-1994 peso crisis as a source of variation and a variety of proxies for plant productivity, I find that initially more-productive plants increased the export share of sales, white-collar wages, blue-collar wages, the relative wage of white-collar workers, and ISO 9000 certification more than initially less-productive plants during the peso crisis period, and that these differential changes were greater than in periods without devaluations before and after the crisis period. A factor-analytic strategy that relies more heavily on the theoretical structure and avoids the need to construct proxies finds similar results. These findings support the hypothesis that differential quality upgrading induced by the exchange rate shock tended to increase within-industry wage inequality.