Financial Globalization and Emerging Market Portfolios

Although emerging market Asian economies have experienced high growth without crises for close to a decade, many commentators find the large buildup of foreign exchange reserves among these economies both puzzling and evidence of incipient global imbalances. This paper reviews some of the experience of Asian countries over the last decade. We focus on the degree to which Asian economies have experienced financial globalization, meaning that their gross external asset and liability positions have grown significantly. In particular, while Asian economies have become significant gross creditors in bonds and other fixed income assets, their liability position in equity and FDI assets has also grown significantly. We show that a simple dynamic general equilibrium model of portfolio choice in an emerging market economy can account for this trend remarkably well.Asia, Financial Globalization, FDI, Foreign Exchange Rate Reserves

Fiscal deficits, debt, and monetary policy in a liquidity trap

The macroeconomic response to the economic crisis has revived old debates about the usefulness of monetary and fiscal policy in fighting recessions. Without the ability to further lower interest rates, policy authorities in many countries have turned to expansionary fiscal policies. Recent literature argues that government spending may be very effective in such environments. But a critical element of the stimulus packages in all countries was the use of deficit financing and tax reductions. This paper explores the role of government debt and deficits in an economy constrained by the zero bound on nominal interest rates. Given that the liquidity trap is generated by a large increase in the desire to save on the part of the private sector, the wealth effects of government deficits can provide a critical macroeconomic response to this. Government spending financed by deficits may be far more expansionary than that financed by tax increases in such an environment. In a liquidity trap, tax cuts may be much more effective than during normal times. Finally, monetary policies aimed at directly increasing monetary aggregates may be effective, even if interest rates are unchanged.Fiscal policy ; Recessions ; Deficit financing ; Debts, Public ; Government spending policy ; Monetary policy ; Taxation ; Liquidity (Economics)

A Simple Dynamic General Equilibrium Analysis of the Trade-off Between Fixed and Floating Exchange Rates

This paper provides a complete analytical characterization of the positive and normative effects of alternative exchange rate regimes in a simple two-country sticky-price dynamic general equilibrium model with money, technology, and government spending shocks. A central question addressed is whether fixing the exchange rate prevents macroeconomic adjustment in relative prices from occurring, in face of shocks. In the model, the exchange rate regime has implications for both the volatility and mean of macroeconomic aggregates. But the effects of the exchange rate regime depend upon both the stance of monetary policy and the way in which the exchange rate is pegged. With a passive monetary policy, a cooperative pegged exchange rate regime has no implications for macroeconomic volatility, relative to a floating regime, but implies a higher mean level of employment, capital stock, and real GDP. When monetary policy is determined optimally however, a fixed exchange rate regime leads to higher employment volatility and a lower mean level of employment and real GDP. Therefore, whether fixing the exchange rate involves a welfare cost depends critically upon the flexibility of monetary policy in responding to macroeconomic shocks.

Financial Globalization and Emerging Market Portfolios

Although emerging market Asian economies have experienced high growth without crises for close to a decade, many commentators find the large buildup of foreign exchange reserves among these economies both puzzling and evidence of incipient global imbalances. This paper reviews some of the experiences of Asian countries over the last decade. We focus on the degree to which Asian economies have experienced financial globalization, meaning that their gross external asset and liability positions have grown significantly. In particular, while Asian economies have become significant gross creditors in bonds and other fixed income assets, their liability position in equity and foreign direct investment assets has also grown significantly. We show that a simple dynamic general equilibrium model of portfolio choice in an emerging market economy can account for this trend remarkably well.Asia; Financial globalization; Foreign direct investment; Foreign exchange rate reserves

Exchange Rates and Monetary Policy in Emerging Market Economies

This paper investigates the effects of exchange rate regimes and alternative monetary policy rules for an emerging market economy that is subject to a volatile external environment in the form of shocks to world interest rates and the terms of trade. In particular, we highlight the impact of financial frictions and the degree of exchange rate pass through in determining the relative performance of alternative regimes in stablizing the economy in the face of external shocks. Our results are quite sharp. When exchange rate pass-through is high, a policy of non-traded goods inflation targeting does best in stablizing the economy, and is better in welfare terms. When exchange rate pass-through is low, however, a policy of strict CPI inflation targeting is better. In all cases, a fixed exchange rate is undesirable. In addition, financial frictions have no implications for the ranking of alternative policy rules.

Exchange Rate Pass-Through, Exchange Rate Volatility, and Exchange Rate Disconnect

This paper explores the hypothesis that high volatility of real and nominal exchange rates may be due to the fact that local currency pricing eliminates the pass-through from changes in exchange rates to consumer prices. Exchange rates may be highly volatile because in a sense they have little effect on macroeconomic variables. The paper shows the ingredients necessary to construct such an explanation for exchange rate volatility. In addition to the presence of local currency pricing, we need a) incomplete international financial markets, b) a structure of international pricing and product distribution such that wealth effects of exchange rate changes are minimized, and c) stochastic deviations from uncovered interest rate parity. Together, it is shown that these elements can produce exchange rate volatility that is much higher than shocks to economic fundamentals, and `disconnected' from the rest of the economy in the sense that the volatility of all other macroeconomic aggregates are of the same order as that of fundamentals.

Expectations and Exchange Rate Policy

Both empirical evidence and theoretical discussion have long emphasized the impact of %u201Cnews%u201D on exchange rates. In most exchange rate models, the exchange rate acts as an asset price, and as such responds to news about future returns on assets. But the exchange rate also plays a role in determining the relative price of non-durable goods when nominal goods prices are sticky. In this paper we argue that these two roles may conflict with one another. If news about future asset returns causes movements in current exchange rates, then when nominal prices are slow to adjust, this may cause changes in current relative goods prices that have no efficiency rationale. In this sense, anticipations of future shocks to fundamentals can cause current exchange rate misalignments. Friedman%u2019s (1953) case for unfettered flexible exchange rates is overturned when exchange rates are asset prices. We outline a series of models in which an optimal policy eliminates the effects of news on exchange rates.

The Optimal Choice of Exchange-Rate Regime: Price-Setting Rules and Internationalized Production

We investigate the choice of exchange-rate regime fixed or floating in a dynamic, intertemporal general equilibrium framework. Our framework extends Devereux and Engel (1998) by investigating the implications of internationalized production. We examine the role of price-setting -- whether prices are set in the currency of producers or the currency of consumers in determining the optimality of exchange-rate regimes in an environment of uncertainty created by monetary shocks. We find that when prices are set in producers' currencies, floating exchange rates are preferred when the country is large enough, or not too risk averse. On the other hand, floating exchange rates are always preferred when prices are set in consumers' currencies because floating exchange rates allow domestic consumption to be insulated from foreign monetary shocks. The gains from floating exchange rates are greater when there is internationalized production in this case.