Globalization and monetary policy: an introduction

Greater openness has become an almost universal feature of modern, developed economies. This paper develops a workhorse international model, and explores the role of standard monetary policy rules applied to an open economy. For this purpose, I build a two-country DSGE model with monopolistic competition, sticky prices, and pricing-to-market. I also derive the steady state and a log-linear approximation of the equilibrium conditions. The paper provides a lengthy explanation of the steps required to derive this benchmark model, and a discussion of: (a) how to account for certain well-known anomalies in the international literature, and (b) how to start "thinking" about monetary policy in this environment.Monetary policy ; Equilibrium (Economics) ; Globalization ; Macroeconomics ; International finance ; Mathematical models

The euro and the dollar in the crisis and beyond

The euro has survived its first decade, overcoming questions about its viability and political and economic raison d'être. “The Euro and the Dollar in the Crisis and Beyond,” a conference sponsored by Bruegel, the Peterson Institute for International Economics and the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, marked the milestone on March 17, 2010, with discussions of Europe's monetary integration, the euro's global role relative to the dollar and the currency's prospects in the aftermath of the 2008–09 global recession.>Euro-dollar market ; Global financial crisis ; Economic stabilization ; Monetary policy

The real exchange rate in sticky price models: does investment matter?

This paper re-examines the ability of sticky-price models to generate volatile and persistent real exchange rates. We use a DSGE framework with pricing-to-market akin to those in Chari, et al. (2002) and Steinsson (2008) to illustrate the link between real exchange rate dynamics and what the model assumes about physical capital. We show that adding capital accumulation to the model facilitates consumption smoothing and significantly impedes the model's ability to generate volatile real exchange rates. Our analysis, therefore, caveats the results in Steinsson (2008) who shows how real shocks in a sticky-price model without capital can replicate the observed real exchange rate dynamics. Finally, we find that the CKM (2002) persistence anomaly remains robust to several alternative capital specifications including set-ups with variable capital utilization and investment adjustment costs (see, e.g., Christiano, et al., 2005). In summary, the PPP puzzle is still very much alive and well.Globalization ; Foreign exchange ; International finance ; Forecasting ; Mathematical models

Technical note on "The real exchange rate in sticky price models: does investment matter?"

This technical note is developed as a mathematical companion to the paper "The Real Exchange Rate in Sticky Price Models: Does Investment Matter?" (Institute working paper no. 17). It contains three basic calculations. First, we derive the equilibrium conditions of the model. Second, we compute the zero-inflation, zero-trade balance (deterministic) steady state. Third, we describe the log-linearization of the equilibrium conditions around the deterministic steady state. Simultaneously, we explain the system of equations that constitutes the basis for the paper to broaden its scope. Commentary is provided whenever necessary to complement the model description and to place into context the assumptions embedded in our DSGE framework.Globalization ; Foreign exchange ; International finance ; Forecasting ; Mathematical models

Investment and trade patterns in a sticky-price, open-economy model

This paper develops a tractable two-country DSGE model with sticky prices à la Calvo (1983) and local-currency pricing. We analyze the capital investment decision in the presence of adjustment costs of two types, the capital adjustment cost (CAC) specification and the investment adjustment cost (IAC) specification. We compare the investment and trade patterns with adjustment costs against those of a model without adjustment costs and with (quasi-) flexible prices. We show that having adjustment costs results into more volatile consumption and net exports, and less volatile investment. We document three important facts on U.S. trade: a) the S-shaped cross-correlation function between real GDP and the real net exports share, b) the J-curve between terms of trade and net exports, and c) the weak and S-shaped cross-correlation between real GDP and terms of trade. We find that adding adjustment costs tends to reduce the model's ability to match these stylized facts. Nominal rigidities cannot account for these features either.Macroeconomics - Econometric models ; Capital investments ; International trade ; Foreign exchange

Does the Prisoner's Dilemma Refute the Coase Theorem?

Two of the most important ideas in the philosophy of law are the “Coase Theorem” and the “Prisoner’s Dilemma.” In this paper, the authors explore the relation between these two influential models through a creative thought-experiment. Specifically, the paper presents a pure Coasean version of the Prisoner’s Dilemma, one in which property rights are well-defined and transactions costs are zero (i.e. the prisoners are allowed to openly communicate and bargain with each other), in order to test the truth value of the Coase Theorem. In addition, the paper explores what effect (a) uncertainty, (b) exponential discounting, (c) and elasticity have on the behavior of the prisoners in the Coasean version of the dilemma. Lastly, the paper considers the role of the prosecutor (and third-parties generally) in the Prisoner’s Dilemma and closes with some parting thoughts about the complexity of the dilemma. The authors then conclude by identifying the conditions under which the Prisoner’s Dilemma refutes the Coase Theorem

The Balance Sheet Channel

In this paper, we study the role of the credit channel of monetary policy in the context of a DSGE model. Through the use of a regulated banking sector subject to a regulatory capital constraint on lending, we provide alternative interpretations that can potentially explain differences in the implementation of monetary policy without appealing to ad-hoc central bank preferences. This is accomplished through the characterization of the external finance premium as a function of bank leverage and systemic aggregate risk.

The global slack hypothesis

We illustrate the analytical content of the global slack hypothesis in the context of a variant of the widely used New Open-Economy Macro model of Clarida, Galí, and Gertler (2002) under the assumptions of both producer currency pricing and local currency pricing. The model predicts that the Phillips curve for domestic CPI inflation will be flatter under most plausible parameterizations, the more important international trade is to the domestic economy. The model also predicts that foreign output gaps will matter for inflation dynamics, along with the domestic output gap. We also show that the terms of trade gap can capture foreign influences on domestic CPI inflation in an open economy as well. When the Phillips curve includes the terms of trade gap rather than the foreign output gap, the response of domestic inflation to the domestic output gap is the same as in the closed-economy case ceteris paribus. We also note the conceptual and statistical difficulties of measuring the output gaps and suggest that measurement error bias can be a serious concern in the estimation of the open-economy Phillips curve relationship with reduced-form regressions when global slack is not actually observable.International trade - Econometric models ; Phillips curve ; Consumer price indexes ; Inflation (Finance) - Mathematical models

A monetary model of the exchange rate with informational frictions

Data for the U.S. and the Euro area during the post-Bretton Woods period shows that nominal and real exchange rates are more volatile than consumption, very persistent, and highly correlated with each other. Standard models with nominal rigidities match reasonably well the volatility and persistence of the nominal exchange rate, but require an average contract duration above 4 quarters to approximate the real exchange rate counterparts. I propose a two-country model with financial intermediaries and argue that: First, sticky and asymmetric information introduces a lag in the consumption response to currently unobservable shocks, mostly foreign.> ; Accordingly, the real exchange rate becomes more volatile to induce enough expenditure-switching across countries for all markets to clear. Second, differences in the degree of price stickiness across markets and firms weaken the correlation between the nominal exchange rate and the relative CPI price. This correlation is important to match the moments of the real exchange rate. The model suggests that asymmetric information and differences in price stickiness account better for the stylized facts without relying on an average contract duration for the U.S. larger than the current empirical estimates.Foreign exchange rates

A redux of the workhorse NOEM model with capital accumulation and incomplete asset markets

I build a symmetric two-country model that incorporates nominal rigidities, local-currency pricing and monopolistic competition distorting the goods markets. The model is similar to the framework developed in Martínez-García and Søndergaard (2008a, 2008b), but it also introduces frictions in the assets markets by restricting the financial assets available to two uncontingent nominal bonds in zero-net supply and by adding quadratic costs on international borrowing (see, e.g., Benigno and Thoenissen (2008) and Benigno (2009). The technical part of the paper contains three basic calculations. First, I derive the equilibrium conditions of the open economy model under local-currency pricing and incomplete asset markets. Second, I compute the zero-inflation (deterministic) steady state and discuss what happens with a non-zero net foreign asset position. Third, I derive the log-linearization of the equilibrium conditions around the deterministic steady state. The quantitative part of the paper aims to give a broad overview of the role that incomplete international asset markets can play in accounting for the persistence and volatility of the real exchange rate. I find that the simulation of the incomplete and complete asset markets models is almost indistinguishable whenever the business cycle is driven primarily by either nonpersistent monetary or persistent productivity (but not permanent) shocks. In turn, asset market incompleteness has more sizeable wealth effects whenever the cycle is driven by persistent (but not permanent) investment-specific technology shocks, resulting in significantly lower real exchange rate volatility.Foreign exchange ; International finance ; International trade ; Macroeconomics