Effects of U.S. Interest Rates on the Real Exchange Rate in Mexico

Using monthly data to bond and equity markets in Mexico from U.S. investors, we search for responses in the vector autoregressions (VARs) - on the real exchange rate and reserves in Mexico - to shocks in U.S. interest rates and to the Mexican M2/Reserves ratio over the years 1988-2001. The ratio M2/Reserves measures the degree of financial vulnerability and brings this literature closer to theoretical constructions. Shocks to U.S. interest rates explain not more than 7.4% of the variance of international reserves and only 5.5% of real exchange rate changes under conventional specifications. Blending M2/Reserves with real exchange rates at the end of the VAR, external shocks explain 12.5% of the variance of real exchange rate one year after the shock and 12.8% of the variance of M2/Reserves. Typically, the responses in Mexico of U.S. interest rate shocks are as expected: higher shocks to U.S. interest rates move Mexican M2/Reserves up, depreciating the real exchange rate in Mexico

Random Walks and Half-Lives in Chilean and Mexican Peso Real Exchange Rates: 1980 - 2003

Several papers have shown that high-inflation contributes to mean reversion in real exchange rates. This paper studies the Chilean peso (CLP) and Mexican peso (MXN) real exchange rates over 1980-2003. Three datasets are used: two with quarterly and monthly bilateral data (against the U.S. dollar) with consumer and producer price indices and another with monthly real effective rate exchange rates (REER). Unit root tests do not reject the root in levels for both currencies. Half-lives, however, contrast markedly: at 5 years or infinity for the Chilean peso and between 1 and 3 years for the Mexican peso. These findings suggest that the sharp depreciations in MXN and Mexico\u27s relatively higher inflation record may have amplified monetary forces in the dynamics of the real exchange rates

Government size and openness: Evidence from the commodity boom in Latin America

Does government size increase to compensate for the volatility that arises from openness? We evaluate this compensation hypothesis by focusing on Latin America, whose economic growth in the 2000s has been often attributed to the commodity boom. Panel data regressions show that during the 2003-2010 commodity boom terms of trade volatility has positive effects on government size compared to the earlier 1990-2002 period. This key finding supports the compensation hypothesis, a result robust to dynamic panels allowing for reverse causation from government size to the real economy. Policy implications include diversification of the production structure and strengthening of regulatory framework

Institutions: Key variable for economic development in Latin America

This article examines economic development from 1996 to 2015 for 192 countries and specifically Latin America. Evidence shows that each 0.1-point increase in institutions impacts a 3.9% improvement in Latin American per capita output versus a 2.6% effect on world development. This new evidence from Latin America shows a missing opportunity to develop at higher annual pace than the 2.14% average, mainly due to the deterioration in rule of law. We conjecture the efficiency of monetary/fiscal policies will improve if policymakers emphasize projects that foster improvements to institutional quality, such as transparency, public spending quality and fiscal responsibility

Threshold Effects of Terms of Trade on Latin American Growth

This paper investigates nonlinear relationships between terms of trade volatility (totvol) and economic growth in 14 Latin American economies from 1997 to 2014. In the 2000s, Latin American countries experienced accelerated economic growth often attributed to commodity price booms. We split the sample into two regimes based on totvol thresholds determined by bootstrap techniques. Fixed-effects, instrumental variable and dynamic panel regressions address endogeneity in trade-growth, subject to traditional economic channels such as domestic investment, population growth, exchange rate, government size, and institutions. We find statistically significant thresholds and stronger trade-growth links during the 2000s commodity boom and in larger economies

Output Growth and Unexpected Government Expenditures

This paper takes into account the dynamic feedback between government expenditures and output in a model that separates the effects of expected and unexpected government expenditures on output. We allow for standard determinants based on Solow\u27s growth model, as well as financial globalization and trade openness measures for a sample of 56 industrial and emerging market economies over the 1970-2004 period. We find that unanticipated government expenditures have negative and significant effects on output growth, with higher effects in developed economies. Along with savings responses, we interpret these results based on how fiscal policy reacts to business cycles. Anticipated government expenditures have negative - but smaller effects - on output growth. These results are very robust to a recursive treatment of expectations, which reinforces the role of new information in an increasingly integrated world economy

Productivity Effects on Mexican Manufacturing Employment

We examine the effects of labor productivity and total factor productivity (TFP) on employment across 25 Mexican manufacturing industries from 1984 to 2000. Employing panel data methods, several interesting findings emerge. First, we observe a strong and positive impact of NAFTA on employment. Second, productivity exerts a procyclical, positive effect on employment but this effect becomes smaller after NAFTA. Third, partitions of our sample according to capital-labor intensity suggest that industries which are less capital-intensive were affected negatively on impact by NAFTA but that productivity impacted employment positively after NAFTA. In contrast, more capital-intensive industries display these results in reverse

The Impact of the Japanese Purchases of U.S. Treasuries on the Dollar/Yen Exchange Rate

This article connects net Japanese purchases of U.S. Treasury securities and the U.S. 10-year Treasury bond yields to the yen/dollar exchange rate. VAR estimations suggest that a one-time increase in net Japanese purchases has an immediate negative effect on U.S. long bond yields but a short-lived delayed yen depreciation. Further, a one-time increase in the U.S. long yield leads to an immediate yen depreciation. Our results support the hypothesis that Japanese investors, who are major holders of U.S. debt and face extremely low interest rates domestically, influence the dollar/yen rate in a financially integrated world

Productivity Effects on Mexican Manufacturing Employment before and after NAFTA

A vast literature employs vector autoregressions (VAR) methods in order to capture whether innovations in productivity lead to increases or decreases in employment for U.S. manufacturing. Studying 25 Mexican manufacturing industries with annual data from 1984 to 2000, we examine labour productivity (value added per employee) and total factor productivity (TFP) effects on Mexican manufacturing employment. We find that productivity measures vary considerably in Mexico. Making use of panel data methods that control for sector specific effects, the business cycle and real wages, interesting results emerge. First, there are strong positive impacts of TFP (without and with human capital) on manufacturing employment, as well as ambiguous effects of labour productivity on employment. Second, the capital stock effect on employment varies across periods, yielding a positive impact for post-NAFTA and for the overall period. We interpret the latter as evidence that the increase in FDI inflows in the post-NAFTA period has made capital a stronger complement to labour more recently

Democracy in Emerging Markets: A New Perspective on the Natural Resources Curse

Using annual data from 1980 to 2014, we reexamine the relationship between democracy and natural resources for a large sample of emerging market economies. Controlling for human capital (or real GDP per capita) and openness measures, dynamic panel methods address endogeneity from more democratic regimes demanding better control of rents. We find that democracy responds positively to natural resource rents in GDP (NAT) and negatively to terms of trade (TOT). The NAT positive effects mitigate the negative impact of TOT on democracy and holds well in different specifications. By building on a literature focusing on oil rents, increases in NAT (extra revenue over production costs) represent a windfall for mining companies. This leads society to require higher levels of participation in decisions to exploit these rents more transparently. We also find that diversification of rents helps democracy, especially in economies with high shares of oil rents