nep-opm New Economics Papers
on Open Economy Macroeconomic
Issue of 2013‒04‒06
seven papers chosen by
Martin Berka
Victoria University of Wellington

  1. Capital Controls or Real Exchange Rate Policy? A Pecuniary Externality Perspective By Gianluca Benigno; Huigang Chen; Christopher Otrok; Alessandro Rebucci; Eric Young
  2. The impact of yuan internationalization on the euro-dollar exchange rate By Agnès Bénassy-Quéré; Yeganeh Forouheshfar
  3. Three essays on imbalances in a monetary union. By HJORTSØ, Ida Maria
  4. A theory of rollover risk, sudden stops, and foreign reserves By Sewon Hur; Illenin O. Kondo
  5. Exchange rates, monetary policy statements, and uncovered interest parity: before and after the zero lower bound By Michael T. Kiley
  6. Inefficiency in Survey Exchange Rates Forecasts By Francesca Pancotto; Filippo Maria Pericoli; Marco Pistagnesi
  7. Inflation Uncertainty, Output Growth Uncertainty and Macroeconomic Performance: Comparing Alternative Exchange Rate Regimes in Eastern Europe By Muhammad Khan; Mazen Kebewar; Nikolay Nenovsky

  1. By: Gianluca Benigno; Huigang Chen; Christopher Otrok; Alessandro Rebucci; Eric Young
    Abstract: In the aftermath of the global financial crisis, a new policy paradigm has emerged in which old-fashioned policies such as capital controls and other government distortions have become part of the standard policy tool kit (so called macro- prudential policies). On the wave of this seemingly unanimous policy consensus, a new strand of theoretical literature contends that capital controls are welfare enhancing and can be justified rigorously because of second-best considerations. Within the same theoretical framework adopted in this fast-growing literature, this paper shows that a credible commitment to support the exchange rate in crisis times always welfare-dominates prudential capital controls, as it can achieve unconstrained allocation.
    JEL: E52 F37 F41
    Date: 2013–03
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:idb:wpaper:idb-wp-393&r=opm
  2. By: Agnès Bénassy-Quéré (CES - Centre d'économie de la Sorbonne - CNRS : UMR8174 - Université Paris I - Panthéon-Sorbonne, EEP-PSE - Ecole d'Économie de Paris - Paris School of Economics - Ecole d'Économie de Paris, CEPII - Centre d'Etudes Prospectives et d'Informations Internationales - Centre d'analyse stratégique); Yeganeh Forouheshfar (Université Paris-Dauphine - Université Paris-Dauphine)
    Abstract: We study the implication of a multipolarization of the international monetary system on cross-currency volatility. More specifically, we analyze whether the internationalization of the yuan could modify the impact of asset supply and trade shocks on the euro-dollar exchange rate, within a three-country, three-currency portfolio model. Our static model shows that the internationalization of the yuan (defined as a rise in the yuan in international portfolios) would be either neutral or stabilizing for the euro-dollar rate, whatever the exchange-rate regime of China. Moving to a dynamic, stock-flow framework, we show that the internationalization of the yuan would make exchange-rate variations more efficient to stabilize net foreign asset positions after a trade shock.
    Keywords: China; yuan; exchange-rate regime; euro-dollar
    Date: 2013–02
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:cesptp:halshs-00801100&r=opm
  3. By: HJORTSØ, Ida Maria
    Abstract: This thesis investigates the implications of imbalances within a monetary union. In the first chapter, I study how international financial frictions lead to international imbalances and affect optimal fiscal policy in a two-country, two-good DSGE model of a monetary union. I show that the presence of international imbalances affects the optimal conduct of cooperative fiscal policies when the traded goods are complements. Government expenditures optimally play a cross-country risk sharing role which is in conflict with the domestic stabilization role: optimal fiscal policy consists in setting government expenditures such as to reduce international imbalances at the expense of higher domestic inefficiencies. In the second chapter, I assess the implications of strategic fiscal policy interactions in a two-country DSGE model of a monetary union with nominal rigidities and international financial frictions. I show that the fiscal policy makers face an incentive to set fiscal policy such as to switch the terms of trade in their favour. This incentive results in a Nash equilibrium characterized by excessive inflation differentials as well as sub-optimally high current account imbalances within the monetary union. There are thus non-negligeable welfare losses associated with strategic fiscal policy making in a monetary union. The third chapter investigates empirically the degree of risk sharing in the European Economic and Monetary Union (EMU), using two different methods. The first measure relates to the capacity of consumption smoothing. This measure indicates that risk sharing is rather low and that the introduction of the common currency did not lead to higher intra-EMU risk sharing. The second measure is based on the welfare losses associated with deviations from full risk sharing. These welfare losses have fallen since the introduction of the common currency. However, this is mostly due to changes in macroeconomic risk - not to changes in risk sharing per se.
    Date: 2012
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ner:euiflo:urn:hdl:1814/24598&r=opm
  4. By: Sewon Hur; Illenin O. Kondo
    Abstract: Emerging economies, unlike advanced economies, have accumulated large foreign reserve holdings. We argue that this policy is an optimal response to an increase in foreign debt rollover risk. In our model, reserves play a key role in reducing debt rollover crises ("sudden stops"), akin to the role of bank reserves in preventing bank runs. We find that a small, unexpected, and permanent increase in rollover risk accounts for the outburst of sudden stops in the late 1990s, the subsequent increase in foreign reserves holdings, and the salient resilience of emerging economies to sudden stops ever since. Finally, we show that a policy of pooling reserves can substantially reduce the reserves needed by emerging economies.
    Date: 2013
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedgif:1073&r=opm
  5. By: Michael T. Kiley
    Abstract: While uncovered interest parity (UIP) fails unconditionally, UIP conditional on monetary policy actions remains a cornerstone of macroeconomic models used for monetary policy analysis. We posit that monetary policy actions are partially revealed by FOMC statements and propose a new identification strategy to uncover the degree to which such policy actions induce comovement in exchange rates and long-term interest rates consistent with uncovered interest parity. We reach three conclusions. First, there is evidence in favor of UIP at long horizons, conditional on monetary policy actions, for Dollar/Euro and Dollar/Yen exchange rates. Second, short-run movements in exchange rates following monetary policy surprises are consistent with the overshooting prediction of Dornbusch (1976), although our approach cannot test UIP at short horizons. Finally, we examine the degree to which monetary policy statements since the onset of the zero-lower bound (ZLB) on the short-term interest rate in the United States have engendered different comovement between long-term interest rates and exchange rates and find little evidence for a change in relationships.
    Date: 2013
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fip:fedgfe:2013-17&r=opm
  6. By: Francesca Pancotto; Filippo Maria Pericoli; Marco Pistagnesi
    Abstract: We use a novel database of a panel of quarterly survey of exchange rates forecasts available on the Bloomberg platform, for the following .ve bilateral exchange rates: EUR/GBP, EUR/JPY, EUR/USD, GBP/USD and USD/JPY, for the timespan ranging from the third quarter 2006 up to the fourth quarter of 2011. We .nd that forecasters are on average irrational, failing to identify the true data generating process of bilateral exchange rates and generally overreacting to past observed information. Moreover, exploring individual performance, we can state that .nancial analysts irrationally do not look at their past forecast errors to improve the quality of their later forecasts
    Keywords: survey forecasts, exchange rates, overreaction;
    JEL: F31
    Date: 2013–03
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:mod:recent:090&r=opm
  7. By: Muhammad Khan (LEO - Laboratoire d'économie d'Orleans - CNRS : UMR7322 - Université d'Orléans); Mazen Kebewar (LEO - Laboratoire d'économie d'Orleans - CNRS : UMR7322 - Université d'Orléans, University of Aleppo, Faculty of Economics - Department of Statistics and Management Information Systems); Nikolay Nenovsky (LEO - Laboratoire d'économie d'Orleans - CNRS : UMR7322 - Université d'Orléans)
    Abstract: In the late 90's, after severe financial and economic crisis, accompanied by inflation and exchange rate instability, Eastern Europe emerged into two groups of countries with radically contrasting monetary regimes (Currency Boards and Inflation targeting). The task of our study is to compare econometrically the performance of these two regimes in terms of the relationship between inflation, output growth, nominal and real uncertainties from 2000 till now. In other words, we test the hypothesis of non-neutrality of monetary and exchange rate regimes with respect to these connections. In a whole, the empirical results do not allow us to judge which monetary regime is more appropriate and reasonable to assume. EU enlargement is one of the possible explanations for the numbing of the differences and the lack of coherence between the two regimes in terms of inflation, growth and their uncertainties
    Keywords: Inflation, inflation uncertainty, real uncertainty, monetary regimes, Eastern Europe
    Date: 2013–03–25
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:hal:wpaper:halshs-00804556&r=opm

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