|
on Monetary Economics |
| By: | Hisham Foad |
| Abstract: | Has the formation of the European Monetary Union reduced the impact of national borders on cross-border market convergence? This paper extends Engel and Rogers (1996) well known work on border effects to cities across Western Europe over the period 1995 . 2002 and finds two key results. First, cross-border relative prices tend to be more volatile than prices between locations not separated by a border. This result is robust to a variety of potential explanations for border effects, such as uneven sampling bias, idiosyncratic price shocks, and incomplete exchange rate-pass through. Turning our attention to cross-border price volatility before and after the formation of the EMU, the effects vary by country size. Within the EMU, cross-border price volatility has not changed between the "small" countries, but has fallen significantly between the large EMU countries. Between the EMU and the UK, cross-border volatility has increased between the UK and the small EMU countries, but there has been no significant change between the UK and the large EMU countries. These results are consistent with the fact that exchange rates are more likely to adjust to price differentials between small countries than between large countries. |
| Date: | 2005–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:emo:wp2003:0515&r=mon |
| By: | Hisham Foad |
| Abstract: | A multinational deciding on where to locate a foreign production facility may not be indifferent to the choice of location. Numerous variables such as production costs, market access, and local tax treatments will influence the decision as to where the plant is located. Another key variable in this decision is uncertainty. Following the work of Dixit, a firm has an option to make a risky investment, and if this investment is at least partially irreversible, the option has some positive value. As the uncertainty in the investment project increases, so too does the value of the option. When comparing two investment projects that are identical in all respects except their underlying profit volatility, the one with the greater degree of uncertainty will require a higher trigger level of profits to be exercised. This paper examines the impact of uncertainty in exchange rates on a multinational.s decision to locate within or outside a currency union. The option values and trigger levels of investment within and outside the union are derived as a function of exchange rate variances and correlations, transport costs, and market size. |
| Date: | 2005–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:emo:wp2003:0516&r=mon |
| By: | Masahiro Enya (Faculty of Politics, Economics and Law Osaka International University); Akira Kohsaka (Osaka School of International Public Policy, Osaka University) |
| Abstract: | We examine dynamic patterns of macroeconomic variables in East Asia immediately after the Asian financial crisis. Particularly, focusing on East Asia, we can identify their distinctive features from those of aggregate cross-country results. Also, we check with the financial crises in East Asia in the 1980s in order to make sure to what extent the contrast between the aggregate cross-country results and that of the Asian financial crisis comes from differences in time (external environment) or in country structure or both. Some distinctive features in East Asia include higher real interest rates in the crisis year, persistent output as well as investment slowdown, and different behaviors of trade and fiscal surpluses after the crisis. The results suggest that initial monetary tightening be responsible for the unexpectedly serious recession and that favorable external conditions and fiscal stimulus did contribute to the post-crisis real recovery even without credit recoveries. |
| Keywords: | macroeconomic dynamics, East Asia, financial crisis |
| JEL: | E5 O11 O53 |
| Date: | 2004–03 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osk:wpaper:0405&r=mon |