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31. Evaluating Asset-Market Effects of Unconventional Monetary Policy: A Cross-Country Comparison

Author:
John Rogers, Chiara Scotti, and Jonathan H. Wright
Publication Date:
03-2014
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System
Abstract:
This paper examines the effects of unconventional monetary policy by the Federal Reserve, Bank of England, European Central Bank and Bank of Japan on bond yields, stock prices and exchange rates. We use common methodologies for the four central banks, with daily and intradaily asset price data. We emphasize the use of intradaily data to identify the causal effect of monetary policy surprises. We find that these policies are effective in easing financial conditions when policy rates are stuck at the zero lower bound, apparently largely by reducing term premia.
Topic:
Economics, Monetary Policy, Exchange Rate Policy, and Banking
Political Geography:
Japan, Europe, Asia, and England

32. Menu Costs, Trade Flows, and Exchange Rate Volatility

Author:
Logan T. Lewis
Publication Date:
04-2014
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System
Abstract:
U.S. imports and exports respond little to exchange rate changes in the short run. Pricing behavior has long been thought central to explaining this response: if local prices do not respond to exchange rates, neither will trade flows. Sticky prices and strategic complementarities in price setting generate sluggish responses, and they are necessary to match newly available international micro price data. Using trade flow data, I test models capable of replicating these trade price data. Even with significant pricing frictions, the models still imply a trade response to exchange rates stronger than found in the data. Moreover, using significant cross-sector heterogeneity, comparative statics implied by the model find little to no support in the data. These results suggest that while complementarity in price setting and sticky prices can explain pricing patterns, some other short-run friction is needed to match actual trade flows. Furthermore, the muted response found for sectors with high long-run substitutability implies that simply assuming low elasticities may be inappropriate. Finally, there is evidence of an asymmetric response to exchange rate changes.
Topic:
Economics, International Trade and Finance, Exchange Rate Policy, and Capital Flows
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America

33. U.S. Unconventional Monetary Policy and Transmission to Emerging Market Economies

Author:
David Bowman, Juan M. Londono, and Horacio Sapriza
Publication Date:
06-2014
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System
Abstract:
We investigate the effects of U.S. unconventional monetary policies on sovereign yields, foreign exchange rates, and stock prices in emerging market economies (EMEs), and we analyze how these effects depend on country-specifc characteristics. We find that, although EME asset prices, mainly those of sovereign bonds, responded strongly to unconventional monetary policy announcements, these responses were not outsized with respect to a model that takes into account each country's time-varying vulnerability to U.S. interest rates affected by monetary policy shocks.
Topic:
Economics, Emerging Markets, Foreign Exchange, Markets, Monetary Policy, Exchange Rate Policy, Interest Rates, and Stock Markets
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America

34. Cyclically Adjusted Current Account Balances

Author:
Jane Haltmaier
Publication Date:
12-2014
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System
Abstract:
The Great Financial Crisis coincided with a sizable reduction in global external imbalances, defined as the absolute value of the sum of individual country current account surpluses and deficits relative to global GDP. Although current account balances should not respond to a downturn that is uniform across countries, one that hits countries with current account deficits harder than those with surpluses might result in a decline in the global balance. This paper quantifies the cyclical portion of the current account balance for 35 countries using estimates of the severity of the cycle in each country relative to that of its trading partners in conjunction with three estimates of the sensitivity of the current account balance to changes in the output gap. Two of the estimates are derived from equations linking trade to income and the third is derived from the relationship between changes in current account balances and changes in output gap differentials. The main result is that the bulk of the reduction in the global current account imbalance since 2006 appears to have been structural. Cyclical forces are estimated to account for between 10 and 30 percent of the decline. In the aggregate, the cyclical effect is estimated to be currently holding down the global current account balance by about 1/2 percentage point. However, the size of the cyclical effect is more substantial for some countries. Both surplus and deficit countries have contributed to the decline in the absolute value of the global current account imbalance, but the contribution of the deficit countries is about twice as large as that of the surplus countries. Changes in oil prices have had largely offsetting effects on the global current account balance, but changes in real exchange rates in recent years have contributed to the reduction.
Topic:
Economics, Energy Policy, Oil, Natural Resources, Financial Crisis, GDP, Exchange Rate Policy, and Trade
Political Geography:
Global Focus

35. Missing Import Price Changes and Low Exchange Rate Pass-Through

Author:
Etienne Gagnon, Benjamin R. Mandel, and Robert J. Vigfusson
Publication Date:
01-2012
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System
Abstract:
A large body of empirical work has found that exchange rate movements have only modest effects on inflation. However, the response of an import price index to exchange rate movements may be underestimated because some import price changes are missed when constructing the index. We investigate downward biases that arise when items experiencing a price change are especially likely to exit or to enter the index. We show that, in theoretical pricing models, entry and exit have different implications for the timing and size of these biases. Using Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) microdata, we derive empirical bounds on the magnitude of these biases and construct alternative price indexes that are less subject to selection effects. Our analysis suggests that the biases induced by selective exits and entries are modest over typical forecast horizons. As such, the empirical evidence continues to support the conclusion that exchange rate pass-through to U.S. import prices is low.
Topic:
International Trade and Finance, Exchange Rate Policy, Imports, and Price
Political Geography:
Global Focus

36. U.S. International Equity Investment and Past Prospective Returns

Author:
John Armmer, Sara B. Holland, David C Smith, and Francis E. Warnock
Publication Date:
03-2012
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System
Abstract:
U.S. investors are the largest group of international equity investors in the world, but to date conclusive evidence on which types of foreign firms are able to attract U.S. investment is not available. Using a comprehensive dataset of all U.S. investment in foreign equities, we find that the single most important determinant of the amount of U.S. investment a foreign firm receives is whether the firm cross-lists on a U.S. exchange. Correcting for selection biases, cross-listing leads to a doubling (or more) in U.S. investment, an impact greater than all other factors combined. We also show that our firm-level analysis has implications for country-level studies, suggesting that research investigating equity investment patterns at the country-level should include cross-listing as an endogenous control variable. We describe easy-to-implement methods for including the importance of cross-listing at the country level.
Topic:
International Cooperation, Exchange Rate Policy, Investment, and Equity
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America

37. Exchange Rate Policy and Sovereign Bond Spreads in Developing Countries

Author:
Samir Jahjah, Bin Wei, and Vivian Zhanwei Yue
Publication Date:
06-2012
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System
Abstract:
This paper empirically analyzes how exchange rate policy affects the issuance and pricing of international bonds for developing countries. We find that countries with less flexible exchange rate regimes pay higher sovereign bond spreads and are less likely to issue bonds. Quantitatively, changing a free-floating regime to a fixed regime decreases the likelihood of bond issuance by 4.6% and increases the bond spread by 1.3% on average. Furthermore, countries with real exchange rate overvaluation have higher bond spreads and higher bond issuance probabilities. Moreover, such positive effects of real exchange rate overvaluation tend to be magnified for countries with fixed exchange rate regimes. Our results suggest that choosing a less flexible exchange rate regime in general leads to higher borrowing costs for developing countries, especially when their currencies are overvalued.
Topic:
Development, Exchange Rate Policy, Fiscal Policy, and Bonds
Political Geography:
Global Focus

38. International Relative Price Levels: A Look Under the Hood

Author:
Jaime Marquez, Charles Thomas, and Corinne Land
Publication Date:
08-2012
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System
Abstract:
This paper examines the structure of international relative price levels using purchasing power parities (PPP) at the product-level from the 2005 World Bank’s International Comparison Program (ICP). Our examination is motivated by questions arising from two applications using economy-wide PPPs: the measurement of real effective exchange rates (REERs) and the correlation between prices and development. Specifically, how would our view on competitiveness be affected if one were to use PPP measures that exclude non-tradable categories? Is it the case that an increase in per-capita income raises the prices of non-tradable categories? These questions are not new. What is new here is the use of relative price levels (as opposed to indexes) at the product level for 144 countries that differ greatly in their level of development.
Topic:
Development, International Trade and Finance, Exchange Rate Policy, Strategic Competition, and Price
Political Geography:
Global Focus

39. Empirical Estimation of Trend and Cyclical Export Elasticities

Author:
Jane Haltmaier
Publication Date:
09-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System
Abstract:
This paper uses an adaptation of Vahid and Engle's common trend/common cycle analysis to estimate trend and cyclical export elasticities for trading partner income and real exchange rates for 36 countries. For the countries for which both types of income elasticities can be identified, the cyclical elasticity is on average more than twice as large as the trend elasticity. The methodology is applied to forecasting exports during the recent cycle and it appears to improve on simpler models for about half of the countries. For an aggregate of all of the countries for which separate elasticities can be identified, the RMSE is about half as large for the trend/cycle model as for the simple model.
Topic:
Economics, International Trade and Finance, Exchange Rate Policy, and Exports
Political Geography:
Global Focus

40. Exports Versus Multinational Production Under Nominal Uncertainty

Author:
Logan T. Lewis
Publication Date:
12-2011
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System
Abstract:
This paper examines how nominal uncertainty affects the choice firms face to serve a foreign market through exports or to produce abroad as a multinational. I develop a two-country, stochastic general equilibrium model in which firms make production and pricing decisions in advance, and I consider its implications on this relative choice. For foreign firms, both exports and multinational production are priced in the destination currency, and this uncertainty has no effect on the relative decision. In the data, U.S. firms set nearly all of their export prices in dollars. Therefore, home firms price exports in their own currency in the model. Home exporters gain an advantage over home multinationals: during a foreign contraction, the foreign exchange rate appreciates, causing exported goods from the home country to be relatively cheaper. This pricing advantage affects exporters non-linearly through demand, which translates to convex profits. As foreign volatility rises, the model implies that the home country should serve the foreign country relatively more through exports. I take this implication to bilateral U.S. data, using inflation volatility as a proxy for nominal volatility. Using sectoral data on sales by majority-owned foreign affiliates matched with U.S. exports, I find that higher inflation volatility is associated with a significantly lower ratio of multinational production to total foreign sales.
Topic:
International Cooperation, Multinational Corporations, Exchange Rate Policy, and Exports
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America