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on Open MacroEconomics |
| By: | Mavromatis, Konstantinos (Department of Economics, University of Warwick and Warwick Business School, Finance Group,) |
| Abstract: | In this paper I show, using both empirical and theoretical analysis, that changes in monetary policy in one country can have important e.ects on other economies. My ew empirical evidence shows that changes in the monetary policy behaviour of the Fed since the start of the Euro, well captured by a Markov-switching Taylor rule, have had significant e.ects on the behaviour of inflation and output in the Eurozone even though ECB’s monetary policy is found to be fairly stable. Using a two-country DSGE model, I examine this case theoretically; monetary policy in one of the countries (labelled foreign) switches regimes according to a Markov-switching process and this has nonnegligible e.ects in the other (home) country. Switching by the foreign central bank renders commitment to a time invariant interest rate rule suboptimal for the home central bank. This is because home agents expectations change as foreign monetary policy changes which a.ects the dynamics of home inflation and output. Optimal policy in the home country instead reacts to the regime of the foreign monetary policy and so implies a time-varying reaction of the home Central Bank. Following this time-varying optimal policy at home eliminates the e.ects in the home country of foreign regime shifts, and also reduces dramatically the e.ects in the foreign country. Therefore, changes in foreignmonetary regimes should not be neglected in considering monetary policy at home. Key words: Markov-switching DSGE ; Optimal monetary policy ; Dynamic programming ;SVAR ; real-time data. JEL Classification: E52 ; F41 ; F42. |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wrk:warwec:982&r=opm |
| By: | Andrew K. Rose (Asian Development Bank Institute (ADBI)) |
| Abstract: | This paper analyzes the causes of the 2008–2009 financial crisis together with its manifestations, using a Multiple Indicator Multiple Cause (MIMIC) model. The analysis is conducted on a cross-section of 85 economies; I focus on international financial linkages that may have both allowed the crisis to spread across economies, and/or provided insurance. The model of the cross-economy incidence of the crisis combines 2008–2009 changes in real gross domestic product (GDP), the stock market, economy credit ratings, and the exchange rate. The key domestic determinants of crisis incidence that I consider are taken from the literature, and are measured in 2006 : real GDP per capita; the degree of credit market regulation; and the current account, measured as a fraction of GDP. Above and beyond these three national sources of crisis vulnerability, I add a number of measures of both multilateral and bilateral financial linkages to investigate the effects of international financial integration on crisis incidence. I ask three questions, with a special focus on Asian economies. First, did the degree of an economy’s multilateral financial integration help explain its crisis? Second, what about the strength of its bilateral financial ties with the United States and the key Asian economics of the People’s Republic of China, Japan, and the Republic of Korea? Third, did the presence of a bilateral swap line with the Federal Reserve affect the intensity of an economy’s crisis? I find that neither multilateral financial integration nor the existence of a Fed swap line is correlated with the cross-economy incidence of the crisis. There is mild evidence that economies with stronger bilateral financial ties to the United States (but not the large Asian economies) experienced milder crises. That is, more financially integrated economies do not seem to have suffered more during the most serious macroeconomic crisis in decades. This strengthens the case for international financial integration; if the costs of international financial integration were not great during the Great Recession, when could we ever expect them to be larger? |
| Keywords: | financial integration, financial crisis, financial linkage, Asian economies |
| JEL: | E65 F30 |
| Date: | 2012–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eab:financ:23195&r=opm |
| By: | Joshua Aizenman (Asian Development Bank Institute (ADBI)) |
| Abstract: | This paper takes stock of recent research dealing with the degree to which the trilemma choices of Asian countries facilitated a smoother adjustment during the global crisis of 2008– 2009, and the way the region has been coping with the adjustment to the postcrisis challenges. We point out that emerging Asia has converged to a middle ground of the trilemma configuration : limited financial integration, a degree of monetary independence, and controlled exchange rate buffered by sizable international reserves. This configuration, with the proper management of balance sheet exposure and public finances, facilitated a smoother adjustment of emerging Asia to the crisis, and was instrumental in inducing the rapid resumption of growth. The swings of financial flows, from large deleveraging of foreign positions in 2008 to the renewed inflows in 2010, validate the insight of the public finance approach to financial integration : the gains from deeper financial integration should be balanced against the costs of growing exposure to turbulences. A key lesson of the crisis is the need to apply a comprehensive cost/benefit approach to prudential policies, to the regulation of external borrowing and of domestic financial intermediation, and to the accumulation and use of international reserves. We illustrate these results in the context of the challenges facing emerging Asia’s adjustment during the global financial crisis, and the postcrisis policy stance dealing with the renewed inflows of capital. |
| Keywords: | Financial Stability, emerging Asia, financial integration, monetary independence, controlled exchange |
| JEL: | F31 F32 F33 F36 |
| Date: | 2011–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eab:financ:23219&r=opm |
| By: | Elif C. Arbatli; Garima Vasishtha |
| Abstract: | Demand for industrial raw materials from emerging economies, particularly emerging Asia, is widely believed to have fueled the surge in oil and industrial commodity prices during 2002-2008. The paper first presents a simple storage model in which commodity prices respond to market participant’s changing expectations of the future macroeconomic environment. In the model, the change in the price of a commodity depends on the unanticipated changes in demand factors, along with the real exchange rate, the real interest rate, and other factors that affect the marginal convenience yield. It then focuses on the role of demand factors by using a newly constructed monthly measure of unanticipated demand shocks for commodities based on revisions to professional forecasts of industrial production growth for a large group of emerging market and advanced economies. The empirical framework also controls for other macroeconomic factors that affect commodity prices, such as the real effective exchange rate (REER) of the U.S. dollar and the real interest rate. The results show that revisions to growth forecasts for emerging Asia play an important role in explaining movements in the real prices of industrial metals. In addition, the REER of the U.S. dollar is an important determinant of industrial commodity prices. For crude oil, growth forecast revisions for the U.S. and the real interest rate play a significant role in explaining real prices. Furthermore, growth surprises in general fall short of explaining the fast run-up in most commodity prices during 2006-2008, and the magnitude of the collapse in prices during the recent global financial crisis. |
| Keywords: | Econometric and statistical methods; International topics |
| JEL: | Q41 Q43 |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bca:bocawp:12-8&r=opm |
| By: | Raphael Anton Auer |
| Abstract: | This paper quantifies the effect of the government-controlled appreciation of the Chinese renminbi (RMB) vis-à-vis the USD from 2005 to 2008 on the prices charged by US producers. As the RMB during that time was pegged to a basket of currencies, the empirical strategy must account for the fact that the currencies included in the basket may have directly affected US prices. Thus, the pre-2005 period is used to filter out the effects of other exchange rates on import and producer prices. Additionally, utilizing the remainder of the sample, the pure effect of an RMB appreciation on US import prices and, in turn, the effect of RMB-induced US import price fluctuations on US producer prices is established. In a panel spanning the period from 1994 to 2010 and including 417 manufacturing sectors, the main finding emerging from this empirical strategy is that import prices pass into producer prices at an average rate of 0.7. This finding supports the view that the markets for domestic and imported manufactured goods are well integrated. Consequently, even if the exchange rate affects import prices only to a small extent, it may have a substantial impact on inflation, as it exerts a sizeable impact on the competitive environment of domestic producers and the prices that they charge. |
| Keywords: | Price Complementarities, Exchange Rate Pass Through, China, Inflation, Markups |
| JEL: | F11 F12 F14 F15 F16 F40 E31 L16 |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:snb:snbwpa:2012-01&r=opm |
| By: | Andrew Hughes Hallett (Asian Development Bank Institute (ADBI)); Juan Carlos Martinez Oliva |
| Abstract: | This paper addresses the issue of international payments in a stock-flow framework, by capturing the interaction between the current account balance and international assets portfolios of domestic and foreign investors. It is argued that the stability of such interaction may be affected by shifts in the preferences of investors, by the relative rate of return of different assets, and—more in general—by institutional settings. The model is then used for policy analysis purposes to derive the conditions for the existence of dynamic equilibria, and if they can be attained, under the assumption of market-distorting policy choices. |
| Keywords: | exchange rate, current account balance, Applied General Equilibrium model, capital controls, dynamic equilibria |
| JEL: | F13 F32 F34 |
| Date: | 2011–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eab:macroe:23206&r=opm |
| By: | David Guerreiro; Marc Joëts; Valérie Mignon |
| Abstract: | The aim of this paper is to investigate whether price dynamics is homogeneous across the Eurozone countries. Relying on monthly data over the January 1970-July 2011 period, we test for the absolute purchasing power parity (PPP) hypothesis through the implementation of second-generation panel unit root and cointegration tests. Our results show that price dynamics are heterogeneous depending on both the time period and the considered group of countries. More specifically, while PPP is validated for the core EMU countries, this hypothesis does not hold for Northern peripheral economies. Turning to the Southern countries, PPP is observed only before the launch of the euro. |
| Keywords: | price convergence, Eurozone, panel unit root tests, half-life |
| JEL: | C23 E31 F15 F41 |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:drm:wpaper:2012-4&r=opm |
| By: | Mario Lamberte (Asian Development Bank Institute (ADBI)); Peter J. Morgan |
| Abstract: | The increasing occurrence of national, regional, and global financial crises, together with their rising costs and complexity, have increased calls for greater regional and global monetary cooperation. This is particularly necessary in light of volatile capital flow movements that can quickly transmit crisis developments in individual countries to other countries around the world. Global financial safety nets (GFSNs) are one important area for monetary cooperation. This paper reviews the current situation of regional and global monetary cooperation, focusing on financial safety nets, with a view toward developing recommendations for more effective cooperation, especially between the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and regional financial arrangements (RFAs). A GFSN should have adequate resources to deal with multiple crises, should be capable of rapid and flexible response, and should not be encumbered by historical impediments such as the IMF stigma that would limit its acceptance by recipient countries. Oversight of a GFSN needs to be based on cooperation between global and regional forums, for example, the G20 and ASEAN+3 or East Asia Summit (EAS). Such a GFSN should include the IMF and RFAs at a minimum, and it is highly recommended to find ways to include central banks as providers of swap lines and multilateral banks as well. The basic principles governing the cooperation of IMF and RFAs include rigorous and even-handed surveillance; respect of independence and decision-making processes of each institution and regional specificities; ongoing collaboration as a way to build regional capacity for crisis prevention; open sharing of information and joint missions where necessary; specialization based on comparative advantage; consistency of lending conditions and conditionality, although with flexibility; respect of the IMF as preferred creditor; subsidiarity; avoidance of moral hazard; and transparency. |
| Keywords: | regional, global, Monetary cooperation, ASEAN |
| JEL: | F33 F34 F36 F53 F55 |
| Date: | 2012–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eab:financ:23190&r=opm |
| By: | Gregory Chin (Asian Development Bank Institute (ADBI)) |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the evolving dynamics between economic globalization and Asian regional interdependence, and asks whether and how the global financial crisis impacted Asian regionalism. The analysis suggests that the global crisis did trigger advances in regional policy cooperation from 2007 onwards, especially in the area of financial and monetary cooperation. Although the first order response of Asian countries was to join the broader global effort to contain financial freefall at the world level, there emerged a second order response at the level of regional institutional building, specifically to “multilateralize†the Chiang Mai Initiative, and to develop a regional trust fund to help strengthen Asian bond markets. This finding reconfirms the theoretical proposition in historical institutionalism that financial crises have a catalytic effect in stimulating regional innovation. At the same time, we see evolution in the pattern of Asian regionalism in two respects : first, the recent advances in Asian regionalism are being driven primarily, at this stage, by the rise of the PRC and India—although each in their own way, and to varying degrees. The current advance in regionalism also builds on momentum provided by pre-existing programs of regional financial cooperation, namely the Chiang Mai Initiative, and “regional connectivity†programs that have also been championed by Japan and ASEAN countries, such as the GMS, CAREC, and BIMSTEC initiatives. Second, Asian economies appear to be pursuing inclusive regionalism, which attempts to strike a balance between helping themselves and helping the global economy. Asia is striving for modes of regional cooperation that are, on balance, complementary with the current global macroeconomic rebalancing agenda of the G20, and supportive of global integration and openness. The main policy findings are that Asia’s future standing in an increasingly multi-centered world economy will be determined by its effectiveness in advancing a multi-layered international cooperation agenda. Yet achieving such international gains will depend on Asia’s willingness to make serious advances in regional collective action and global leadership, especially in areas of financial and monetary cooperation. |
| Keywords: | Economic Globalization, Asian regionalism, Asian regional interdependence, global financial crisis, regional cooperation |
| JEL: | F15 F33 F36 F51 F53 F55 F59 H87 O53 |
| Date: | 2012–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eab:govern:23193&r=opm |
| By: | Yung Chul Park (Asian Development Bank Institute (ADBI)); Chi-Young Song |
| Abstract: | The purpose of this paper is to reexamine the exchange rate policy of the Republic of Korea, and its role in promoting financial and monetary cooperation in East Asia in the wake of the 2008 global financial crisis. The Republic of Korea would not actively participate in any discussion of establishing a regional monetary and exchange rate arrangement as it is expected to maintain a weakly managed floating regime. The People’s Republic of China (PRC) has been fostering the yuan as an international currency, which will lay the groundwork for forming a yuan area among the PRC; the Association of Southeast Asian Nations JEL Classification : F3, F4 (ASEAN); Hong Kong, China; the PRC; and Taipei,China. Japan has shown less interest in assuming a greater role in East Asia’s economic integration due to deflation, a strong yen, slow growth, and political instability. Japan would not eschew free floating. These recent developments demand a new modality of monetary cooperation among the Republic of Korea, Japan, and the PRC. Otherwise, ASEAN+3 will lose its rationale for steering regional economic integration in East Asia. |
| Keywords: | exchange rate policy, Monetary cooperation, financial cooperation, Republic of Korea, East Asia |
| JEL: | F3 F4 |
| Date: | 2011–10 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:eab:macroe:23222&r=opm |