Exchange Rate Volatility and First-Time Entry by Multinational Firms

Using a model with upfront sunk costs, heterogeneous firms, and endogenous exchange rates, this paper demonstrates theoretically that volatility in fundamental variables such as the nominal interest rate that drive exchange rate volatility can simultaneously impact the entry behavior of multinational firms through a relative price channel unrelated to exchange rate risk. It then provides an empirical illustration of the bias this endogeneity can cause when regressing measures of foreign direct investment on exchange rate volatility. It is the first paper to provide empirical evidence that interest rate volatility may influence the behavior of multinational firms.

Teams of rivals: endogenous markups in a Ricardian world

We show that an ostensibly disparate set of stylized facts regarding firm pricing behavior can arise in a Ricardian model with Bertrand competition. Generalizing the Bernard, Eaton, Jenson, and Kortum (2003) model allows firms' markups over marginal cost to fall under trade liberalization, but increase with FDI, matching empirical studies in international trade. We are able to mesh this dichotomy with the existence of pricing-to-market and imperfect pass-through, as well as to capture stylized facts regarding the frequency and synchronization of price adjustment across markets. The result is a well specified distribution for markups that previously could only be seen numerically and a way to quantify endogenous pricing rigidities emerging from a market structure governed by fierce competition among rivals.Macroeconomics ; International trade ; Pricing

All Banks Great, Small, and Global: Loan pricing and foreign competition

Can allowing foreign participation in the banking sector increase real output, despite the imperfectly competitive nature of the industry? Using a new model of heterogeneous, imperfectly competitive lenders and a simple search process, we show how endogenous markups (the net interest margin commonly used to proxy lending-to-deposit rate spreads) can increase with FDI while the rates banks charge to borrowers are largely unchanged or actually fall. We contrast the competitive effects from cross-border bank takeovers with those of cross-border lending by banks located overseas, which in most cases reduces markups and interest rates. Both policies can increase aggregate output and generate permanent current account imbalances.