What Drives the Current Account in Commodity Exporting Countries? The Cases of Chile and New Zealand

This paper uses an open economy DSGE model with a commodity sector and nominal and real rigidities to ask what factors account for current account developments in two small commodity exporting countries. We estimate the model, using Bayesian techniques, on Chilean and on New Zealand data, and investigate the structural factors that explain the behaviour of the two countries’ current accounts. We find that foreign financial conditions, investment-specific shocks, and foreign demand shocks account for the bulk of the variation of the current accounts of the two countries. In the case of New Zealand, fluctuations in commodity export prices have also been important. Counterfactual experiments indicate that (i) a peso denomination of the Chilean external debt would reduce the impact of external shocks on the exchange rate and domestic variables, and the influence of monetary policy on the current account; and (ii) more or less aggressive monetary policy in New Zealand offers little scope for stabilizing the exchange rate and the current account.

What Drives the Current Account in Commodity Exporting Countries? The Cases of Chile and New Zealand

This paper uses an open economy DSGE model with a commodity sector and nominal and real rigidities to ask what factors account for current account developments in two small commodity exporting countries. We estimate the model, using Bayesian techniques, on Chilean and on New Zealand data, and investigate the structural factors that explain the behaviour of the two countries’ current accounts. We find that foreign financial conditions, investment-specific shocks, and foreign demand shocks account for the bulk of the variation of the current accounts of the two countries. In the case of New Zealand, fluctuations in commodity export prices have also been important. Counterfactual experiments indicate that (i) a peso denomination of the Chilean external debt would reduce the impact of external shocks on the exchange rate and domestic variables, and the influence of monetary policy on the current account; and (ii) more or less aggressive monetary policy in New Zealand offers little scope for stabilizing the exchange rate and the current account.

What Drives the Current Account in Commodity-Exporting Countries? The Cases of Chile and New Zealand

This paper uses a DSGE model to explore what factors explain current account developments in Chile and New Zealand, two small open economies that are intensive commodity exporters. The model estimation shows that investment-specific shocks, foreign financial changes, and foreign demand shocks account for the bulk of the variation in the current accounts of the two countries. In New Zealand, fluctuations in commodity export prices have also been important. Counterfactual experiments indicate that (i) a peso denomination of the Chilean external debt would reduce the impact of external shocks on domestic variables; and (ii) changes in the degree of monetary policy aggressiveness in New Zealand offers little scope for modifying the exchange rate and current account dynamics.

What drives the New Zealand dollar?

This article draws together some of our recent exchange rate research. The research is interpreted against an asset price view of the exchange rate, which has become increasingly relevant as foreign exchange market turnover has become dominated by capital market transactions unrelated to trade in goods and services. Factors that affect expected relative returns on New Zealand dollar assets (eg interest rates, export commodity prices, fixed asset prices and a notion of equilibrium) are found to explain a considerable part of exchange rate cycles, even though they explain only a small part of short-term exchange rate fluctuations. The sources of the relative stability of the Australia-New Zealand bilateral exchange rate and the larger variation of the New Zealand-United States bilateral exchange rate are explored.

Identification and transmission of monetary policy in New Zealand

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