Money, exchange rate and export quality

Abstract

This paper theoretically examines the effect of an expansionary monetary policy on export quality and its ramifications on the aggregate employment of the unskilled workers in a competitive general equilibrium framework of a small open economy. Monetary policies are often pursued by the central bank of an economy to manage exchange rate fluctuations under a managed float regime, which may have adverse consequences for export-quality choices and thereby for export growth given the growing preference of buyers in richer nations for higher qualities of imports. Under optimal allocation of wealth over a portfolio of cash, domestic assets and foreign assets, we show that an increase in the domestic money supply affects the choice of export-quality through larger investment, capital formation and consequent endowment effect and through changes in the nominal exchange rate. Under less price-elastic demand for a non-traded good, export quality is upgraded when quality upgrading is relatively capital (than skill) intensive. The expansionary monetary policy may raise aggregate employment of unskilled workers due to larger investment and capital formation, but may lower it through changes in the quality of the export good. The overall effect is thus ambiguous. A larger initial size of bequests has a similar effect.