Persistence Of Real Exchange Rates Research Articles

Exchange rate regimes and current account persistence

AbstractWe empirically examine Friedman's hypothesis that floating exchange rates facilitate current account adjustments. The main innovation in the empirical analysis is to control for the sample selection bias. We provide robust evidence that current account persistence decreases with the flexibility of nominal exchange rate regimes and is significantly higher under hard pegs than under floating for industrial countries. The economic driving force of this finding is that the channel of the exchange rate adjustment mechanism dominates in affecting the real exchange rate persistence relative to its shock channel.

Current Account Imbalances, Real Exchange Rates, and Nominal Exchange Rate Variability

AbstractThis paper globally analyzes the bivariate relation between large current account imbalances and the real exchange rate over different degrees of nominal exchange rate variability. Employing both linear and nonlinear panel estimation procedures, we typically find an inverse long-run link between large imbalances and the real exchange rate at lower nominal exchange rate rigidity levels. This is in contrast to the often non-existent or positive comovement that materializes under lower nominal exchange rate variation. Our results thus suggest that greater nominal exchange rate adjustment can induce a stabilizing “current account”-“real exchange rate” relation. Meanwhile, current account adjustment speeds up with more flexible nominal exchange rates. Along the cross-section, the most salient findings are i) the striking positive relation between current account persistence and real exchange rate persistence based on country-specific estimates and ii) the inverse correlation between persistence in either the current account or real exchange rate and nominal exchange rate volatility.

Productivity and trade dynamics in sudden stops

This paper proposes a framework to jointly study productivity and trade dynamics during financial crises. The persistent output loss caused by crises is driven by lower productivity growth, which is determined by changes in product entry and exit margins in domestic and export markets. We calibrate and validate the model using unique data on firms’ product portfolios, finding they closely match the behavior of various margins during Chile's 1998 sudden stop. We decompose the sources of the welfare cost of sudden stops, finding that 30% is due to a decline in productivity growth. Lower productivity growth, in turn, is due mostly to slower firm and product entry into the domestic market, while a persistent real exchange rate depreciation induces surviving firms to tilt their product portfolios toward export markets, driving the productivity recovery in the aftermath of the crisis.

Accounting for real exchange rates in emerging economies: The role of commodity prices

A puzzling feature of international price data is that real exchange rates are much more volatile than macroeconomic fundamentals. This study empirically disaggregates international prices into their component parts to examine the key sources of high real exchange rate volatility with emphasis on Emerging Market Economies (EMEs). Using quarterly data over 1985–2015 for 28 countries, we document that 1) relative tradeable goods prices account for most of the observed volatility, 2) world commodity prices explain about 30% of real exchange rate fluctuations, and 3) commodity price shocks are associated with large and persistent real exchange rate appreciations in EMEs. Our results underscore the importance of commodity prices for the conduct of exchange-rate policy in EMEs.

The Macroeconomic Effects of Positive Trend Inflation in a Small Open Economy

ABSTRACT The existing New Keynesian open economy literature tends to make the simplifying assumption that there is no trend inflation. In this paper, we reformulate the standard open economy model to account for positive trend inflation. We then employ the model to understand the effects of macroeconomic shocks in a small open economy when trend inflation is positive. Our main finding is that allowing for trend inflation significantly affects the dynamics of the model through real exchange rate dynamics rather than the slope of the New Keynesian Philips Curve. Specifically, higher trend inflation induces modestly more persistent real exchange rates’ responses to the shocks. Further incorporation of trend inflation in an open economy enables us to discuss the Purchasing Power Parity and Delayed Overshooting Puzzles.

Real Exchange Rate Dynamics and Non-Tradable Goods in a Small Open Economy

Purpose - This paper investigates the relationship between productivity and real exchange rate, the Balassa-Samuelson effect of tradable sector technology shocks on the real exchange rate using a DSGE model. Design/Methodology/Approach - To do this, I have set up a two sector-tradable and nontradable sectors-and a small open economy model with price rigidity. After constructing the model, the structural parameters were calibrated and estimated using historical data and the Bayesian method. The impulse response function was analyzed to determine whether there exists a relationship between productivity and real exchange rate. Findings - As a result of the simulation, after the technology shock hit in the tradable sector, the impulse response function dynamics show the decreasing real exchange rate dynamics that correspond to the theoretical expectation. This implies that there exists a relationship between productivity and the real exchange rate in the Korean economy. Second, analysis of the nontradable sector technology shock suggests that when the consumer piece level inflation decreases, the output increases while the real exchange rate increases. The model’s robustness is verified by the stable dynamics in terms of monetary shock. Research Implications - The results suggest that the New Keynesian model can help to generate the plausible dynamics in a sense that the volatility and persistence of real exchange rate are close to the that of data.

A Behavioral Explanation for the Puzzling Persistence of the Aggregate Real Exchange Rate

At the aggregate level, the evidence that deviations from purchasing power parity (PPP) are too persistent to be explained solely by nominal rigidities has long been a puzzle (Rogoff, 1996). Another puzzle from the micro price evidence of the law of one price (LOP), which is the basic building block of PPP, is that LOP deviations are less persistent than PPP deviations. To reconcile the empirical evidence, we adapt the model of behavioral inattention in Gabaix (2014, 2020) to a simple two-country sticky-price model. We propose a simple test of behavioral inattention and find strong evidence in its favor using micro price data from US and Canadian cities. Calibrating behavioral inattention with our estimates, we show that our model reconciles the two puzzles relating to the PPP and LOP. First, the PPP deviations are more than twice as persistent as PPP deviations explained only by sticky prices. Second, the LOP deviations decrease to less than two-thirds of the PPP deviations in the degree of persistence. Institutional subscribers to the NBER working paper series, and residents of developing countries may download this paper without additional charge at www.nber.org.

A behavioral explanation for the puzzling persistence of the aggregate real exchange rate

At the aggregate level, the evidence that deviations from purchasing power parity (PPP) are too persistent to be explained solely by nominal rigidities has long been a puzzle (Rogoff, 1996). Another puzzle from the micro price evidence of the law of one price (LOP), which is the basic building block of PPP, is that LOP deviations are less persistent than PPP deviations. To reconcile the empirical evidence, we adapt the model of behavioral inattention in Gabaix (2014, 2020) to a simple two-country sticky-price model. We propose a simple test of behavioral inattention and find strong evidence in its favor using micro price data from US and Canadian cities. Calibrating behavioral inattention with our estimates, we show that our model reconciles the two puzzles relating to the PPP and LOP. First, the PPP deviations are more than twice as persistent as PPP deviations explained only by sticky prices. Second, the LOP deviations decrease to less than two-thirds of the PPP deviations in the degree of persistence.

Long Memory and Parity Reversion in Real Exchange Rate

This paper examines the post Bretton Woods experience of the Malaysian Ringgit. In this period, Malaysia moved from a managed to a floating exchange rate environment.We examine persistence in real exchange rates by estimating fractionally integrated ARIMA models and find evidence of long memory, which induces persistence though this long memory need not be associated with a unit root. The results show that three out of four exchange rates being examined display mean reversion. The long memory process re-establishes the Purchasing Power Parity as a meaningful concept of long-run equilibrium relation between the exchange rate and relative prices.

A Behavioral Explanation for the Puzzling Persistence of the Aggregate Real Exchange Rate

A Behavioral Explanation for the Puzzling Persistence of the Aggregate Real Exchange Rate

Revisiting the persistence of real exchange rates

In this paper we provide new and robust evidence that panel regressions significantly reduce the estimated half-lives of real exchange rates in a sample of 21 countries. These results are obtained under dynamic panel models that control for non-purchasing power parity (PPP) equilibria. Small-sample bias does not have a significant impact on half-lives, since the increase in the half-life arising from the bias is more than compensated by the decrease of the half-life due to the control of non-PPP equilibria. Among the two sources of non-PPP equilibria, i.e., first, the Balassa-Samuelson effect and second, smooth shifts in mean, we find that, under a heterogeneous panel model, the first source results in a larger reduction of half-lives.

Price rigidities and the relative PPP

We measure the proportion of real exchange rate movements accounted for by cross-country movements in relative reset prices (prices that changed since the previous period) using CPI microdata for five countries. Relative reset prices account for almost all of the real exchange rate movements. This is a challenge for most workhorse sticky price models used to generate volatile and persistent real exchange rates, in which relative reset prices are sluggish. Models where movements in relative wages are persistent and track the nominal exchange rate do replicate both the empirical properties of the real exchange rate and of relative reset prices.

Real exchange rate persistence and country characteristics: A global analysis

This paper examines the persistence of real exchange rates across 151 countries. We employ univariate time series techniques on a country-by-country basis allowing for deterministic structural breaks and nonlinearities in the adjustment process. Our findings suggest that bilateral exchange rates display higher rates of persistence than multilateral exchange rates, with the latter (former) exhibiting half-lives of less than 1 (2) year(s). Assessing country results by stage of economic development, we find that industrial countries display higher levels of exchange rate inertia than developing countries. We retrieve evidence indicating that higher inflation, nominal exchange rate volatility, trade openness and proximity to reference country are associated with faster rates of real exchange rate convergence. Conversely, international financial integration is found to only play a role at the country group level, with differential effects across cohorts.

Real exchange rate convergence: The roles of price stickiness and monetary policy

In many open-economy models based on Dornbusch (1976), the speed of convergence of the real exchange rate is tied to the stickiness of prices. The “purchasing power parity puzzle” concerns the empirical fact that real exchange rates appear to converge more slowly than nominal prices. In some New Keynesian models, when there is no interest-rate smoothing, the stickiness of prices does not matter at all for persistence, as Benigno (2004) showed. We show that in the presence of interest-rate smoothing, price stickiness does matter and endogenous real-exchange rate persistence is bounded above by the interest rate smoothing parameter and by the probability of a firm not changing prices under Calvo pricing. We also explain the relationship between the New Keynesian framework with Calvo pricing, and the Dornbusch framework where price stickiness is integral to real exchange rate convergence.

Monetary Policy and Real Exchange Rate Dynamics in Sticky-Price Models

We study how real exchange rate dynamics are affected by monetary policy in dynamic, stochastic, general equilibrium, sticky-price models. Our analytical and quantitative results show that the source of interest rate persistence - policy inertia or persistent policy shocks - is key. In the presence of persistent monetary shocks, increasing policy inertia may decrease real exchange rate persistence, hampering the ability of sticky-price models to generate persistent real exchange rate deviations from parity.

Real exchange rate persistence and the excess return puzzle: The case of Switzerland versus the US

SummaryThe PPP puzzle refers to the wide swings of nominal exchange rates around their long‐run equilibrium values whereas the excess return puzzle represents the persistent deviation of the domestic‐foreign interest rate differential from the expected change in the nominal exchange rate. Using theI(2) cointegrated VAR model, much of the excess return puzzle disappears when an uncertainty premium in the foreign exchange market, proxied by the persistent PPP gap, is introduced. Self‐reinforcing feedback mechanisms seem to cause the persistence in the Swiss‐US parity conditions. These results support imperfect knowledge based expectations rather than so‐called “rational expectations”.

Trend Inflation and Exchange Rate Dynamics: A New Keynesian Approach

The paper studies exchange rate implications of trend inflation within a two-country New Keynesian (NK) model under incomplete international financial markets. A NK Phillips curve generalized by trend inflation with a positive long-run mean implies an expectational difference equation of inflation with higher-order leads of expected inflation. The resulting two-country inflation differential is smoother, more persistent, and more insensitive to a real exchange rate. General equilibrium then yields (i) a persistent real exchange rate with an autoregressive root close to one, (ii) a hump-shaped impulse response of a real exchange rate with a half-life longer than four years, (iii) a volatile real exchange rate relative to cross-country inflation differential, (iv) an almost perfect co-movement between real and nominal exchange rates and (v) a sharp rise in the volatility of a real exchange rate from a managed nominal exchange rate regime to a flexible one within an otherwise standard two-country NK model. Trend inflation, therefore, approaches empirical puzzles of exchange rates dynamics.

TAYLOR RULE REACTION COEFFICIENTS AND REAL EXCHANGE RATE PERSISTENCE

ABSTRACTRecent literature has established a link between the persistence of real exchange rates and the degree of inertia in Taylor rule monetary policy reactions functions. This paper provides a different view on this link by investigating how the size of Taylor rule reaction coefficients impacts the adjustment dynamics of the real exchange rate. Within a stylized sticky‐price open‐economy macro model, it is demonstrated that a stronger interest rate reaction to inflation in the Taylor rule raises the convergence speed of the real exchange rate. Conversely, raising the coefficient on the output gap or attending to the exchange rate in an open‐economy version of the Taylor rule slows down real exchange rate adjustment. In all cases, more rapid convergence comes at the cost of stronger initial real exchange rate misalignments in the wake of monetary policy shocks.

PERSISTENCE OF REAL EXCHANGE RATES IN THE CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPEAN COUNTRIES

We investigate the mean reversion in real exchange rates for Central and Eastern European countries. We use point and confidence interval estimates from the Phillips et al.’s (2001) local-persistent model as our preferred measures of the persistence of real exchange rates. We find that the adjustment to purchasing power parity is more rapid after accounting for structural breaks, with half-life deviation from parity below 18 months, which is consistent with the explanation based on nominal rigidities. The estimated narrow confidence intervals for the half-lives invalidate the purchasing power parity puzzle for transition and some core European Union countries. The novelty of our results lies in the finding of strong evidence for purchasing power parity as the local-persistent model produces shorter half-lives and much narrower corresponding confidence intervals than those obtained by standard Dickey-Fuller and local-to-unity models. Our evidence for PPP suggests that the transition countries have maintained their long-run competitiveness against their trading partners.

Parity reversion in the Asian real exchange rates: new evidence from the local-persistent model

This article investigates the time-series properties of 13 Asian real exchange rates (RERs) vis-à-vis the US dollar. The half-life point estimates drawn from the local-persistent model are all less than 2 years, with a finite upper bound. There is no evidence to indicate that the Asian financial crisis has altered the speed of the purchasing power parity (PPP) adjustments. We find that the persistence of RERs over the last three decades remains unchanged in majority of the cases. Given the fairly rapid speed of adjustments and their corresponding confidence intervals, we conclude that the PPP puzzle does not exist in these countries.