Limited asset market participation and the consumption-real exchange rate anomaly

Under efficient consumption risk sharing, as assumed in standard international business cycle models, a country's aggregate consumption rises relative to foreign consumption, when the country's real exchange rate depreciates. Yet empirically, relative consumption and the real exchange rate are essentially uncorrelated. This paper shows that this 'consumption-real exchange rate anomaly' can be explained by a simple model in which a subset of households trade in complete financial markets, while the remaining households lead hand-to-mouth (HTM) lives. HTM behaviour also generates greater volatility of the real exchange rate and of net exports, which likewise brings the model closer to the data. © Canadian Economics Association.SCOPUS: ar.jFLWINinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishe

Monetary Policy Rules and Foreign Currency Positions

Using an endogenous portfolio choice model, this paper examines how different monetary policy regimes can lead to different foreign currency positions by changing the cyclical properties of the nominal exchange rate. We find that strict inflation targeting regimes are associated with a short position in foreign currency, while the opposite is true for noninflation targeting regimes. We also explore how these different external positions affect the international transmission of monetary shocks through the valuation channel. When central banks follow inflation targeting Taylor-type rules, valuation effects of monetary expansions are beggar-thy-self, but they are beggar-thy-neighbour in a money growth targeting regime (or when monetary policy puts weight on output stabilization)