How Well Can the New Open Economy Macroeconomics Explain the Exchange Rate and Current Account?

This paper advances the new open economy macroeconomic (NOEM) literature in an empirical direction, estimating and testing a two-country model. Fit to U.S and G-7 data, the model performs moderately well for the exchange rate and current account. Results offer guidance for future theoretical work. Parameter estimates lend support to some common assumptions in the theoretical literature, such as local currency pricing and risk sharing. Estimates are found for key parameters commonly calibrated in the theoretical literature, such as the elasticity of substitution between home and foreign composite goods, and the response of a country risk premium to the net foreign asset position. Results also indicate that deviations from interest rate parity are not closely related to monetary policy shocks, as recently hypothesized. Further, results suggest that inserting explicit interest rate parity shocks into a NOEM model may be more helpful in explaining movements in the current account than the exchange rate.

The dynamic effects of currency union on trade

A currency union’s ability to increase international trade is one of the most debated questions in international macroeconomics. This paper studies the dynamics of these trade effects over time. First, empirical work with data from the European Monetary Union finds that the extensive margin of trade (entry of new firms or goods) responds several years ahead of overall trade volume and actual implementation of the monetary union. This implies a fall at the intensive margin (previously traded goods) in the run-up to EMU. A dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model of trade studies the announcement of a future monetary union as a news shock lowering future trade costs, and finds that the early entry of new firms in anticipation is explainable as a rational forward-looking response under certain conditions. Required elements are sunk costs of exporting and ex-ante heterogeneity among firms. The findings help identify which types of trading frictions are reduced by adopting a currency union. Findings also indicate that a significant fraction of the welfare gains from a monetary union are based upon expectations for the future, so that continued gains depend upon long-term credibility of the union

Does Exchange Rate Risk Matter for Welfare?

Volatility in exchange rates is a prominent feature of open economies, a fact which has motivated elaborate attempts in many countries at exchange rate management. This paper analyzes quantitatively the welfare effects of exchange rate risk in a general two-country environment. It finds that the effects of uncertainty tend to be small for the types of simplified cases considered in past literature. But it identifies other cases, not considered previously, in which these effects can be significantly larger. These include habit persistence, where agents are more sensitive to risk, and also incomplete asset market structures which allow for asymmetries between countries. The latter case suggests that countries which are hosts to an international reserve currency, such as the U.S. or members of the euro zone, may accrue

Global price dispersion: are prices converging or diverging?

This paper documents significant time-variation in the degree of global price convergence over the last two decades. In particular, there appears to be a general U-shaped pattern with price dispersion first falling and then rising in recent years, a pattern which is remarkably robust across country groupings and commodity groups. This time-variation is difficult to explain in terms of the standard gravity equation variables common in the literature, as these tend not to vary much over time or have not risen in recent years. However, regression analysis indicates that this time-varying pattern coincides well with oil price fluctuations, which are clearly time-varying and have risen substantially since the late 1990s. As a result, this paper offers new evidence on the role of transportation costs in driving international price dispersion.Prices

Towards a Theory of Firm Entry and Stabilization Policy

This paper studies the role of stabilization policy in a model where firm entry responds to shocks and uncertainty. We evaluate stabilization policy in the context of a simple analytically solvable sticky price model, where firms have to prepay a fixed cost of entry. The presence of endogenous entry can alter the dynamic response to shocks, leading to greater persistence in the effects of monetary and real shocks. Entry affects welfare, depending on the love of variety in consumption and investment, as well as its implications for market competitiveness. In this context, monetary policy has an additional role in regulating the optimal number of entrants, as well as the optimal level of production at each firm. We find that the same monetary policy rule optimal for regulating the scale of production in familiar sticky price models without entry, also generates the amount of (endogenous) entry corresponding to a flex-price equilibrium.

Tradability, Productivity, and Understanding International Economic Integration

This paper develops a two-country macro model with endogenous tradability to study features of international economic integration. Recent episodes of integration in Europe and North America suggest some surprising observations: while quantities of trade have increased significantly, especially along the extensive margin, price dispersion has not decreased and may even have increased. We propose a way of reconciling these price and quantity observations in a macroeconomic model where the decision of heterogeneous firms to trade internationally is endogenous. Trade is shaped both by the nature of heterogeneity -- trade costs versus productivity -- and by the nature of trade policies -- cuts in fixed costs versus cuts in per unit costs like tariffs. For example, in contrast to tariff cuts, trade policies that work mainly by lowering various fixed costs of trade may have large effects on entry decisions at the extensive margin without having direct effects on price-setting decisions. Whether this entry raises or lowers overall price dispersion depends on the type of heterogeneity that distinguishes the new entrants from incumbent traders.

Pass-through of Exchange Rates and Competition Between Floaters and Fixers

This paper studies how a rise in China's share of U.S. imports could lower pass-through of exchange rates to U.S. import prices. We develop a theoretical model with variable markups showing that the presence of exports from a country with a fixed exchange rate could alter the competitive environment in the U.S. market. In particular, this encourages exporters from other countries to lower markups in response to a U.S. depreciation, thereby moderating the pass-through to import prices. Free entry is found to further moderate the pass-through, in that a U.S. depreciation encourages entry of exporters whose costs are shielded by the fixed exchange rate, which further intensifies the competitive pressure on other exporters. The model predicts that certain conditions are necessary to facilitate this 'China explanation' for falling pass-through, including a 'North America bias' in U.S. preferences. The model also produces a log-linear structural equation for pass-through regressions indicating how to include the China share. Panel regressions over 1993–1999 support the prediction that a high China share in imports lowers pass-through to U.S. import prices.

The Dynamic Effects of Currency Union on Trade

A currency union’s ability to increase international trade is one of the most debated questions in international macroeconomics. This paper studies the dynamics of these trade effects over time. First, empirical work with data from the European Monetary Union finds that the extensive margin of trade (entry of new firms or goods) responds several years ahead of overall trade volume and actual implementation of the monetary union. This implies a fall at the intensive margin (previously traded goods) in the run-up to EMU. A dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model of trade studies the announcement of a future monetary union as a news shock lowering future trade costs, and finds that the early entry of new firms in anticipation is explainable as a rational forward-looking response under certain conditions. Required elements are sunk costs of exporting and ex-ante heterogeneity among firms. The findings help identify which types of trading frictions are reduced by adopting a currency union. Findings also indicate that a significant fraction of the welfare gains from a monetary union are based upon expectations for the future, so that continued gains depend upon long-term credibility of the union.currency union, extensive margin of trade

The Micro-Macro Disconnect of Purchasing Power Parity

This paper reconciles the persistence of aggregate real exchange rates with the faster adjustment of international relative prices in microeconomic data. Panel estimation of an error correction model using a micro data set uncovers new stylized facts regarding this puzzle. First, adjustment to purchasing power parity deviations in aggregated data is not just a slower version of adjustment to the law of one price in microeconomic data, as arbitrage occurs in different markets, in response to distinct macroeconomic and microeconomic shocks. Second, when half-lives are estimated conditional on macro shocks, micro relative prices exhibit just as much persistence as aggregate real exchange rates. These results challenge theories of real exchange rate persistence based on sticky prices and on heterogeneity across goods, and support an explanation based on the presence of distinct macro and microeconomic shocks.