Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System

Abstract:

In this paper we present an extensive analysis of the consequences for global equilibrium determinacy of implementing active interest rate rules (i.e. monetary rules where the nominal interest rate responds more than proportionally to changes in inflation) in flexible-price open economies. We show that conditions under which these rules generate aggregate instability by inducing cyclical and chaotic equilibrium dynamics depend on particular characteristics of open economies such as the degree of (trade) openness and the degree of exchange rate pass-through implied by the presence of non-traded distribution costs. For instance, we find that a forward-looking rule is more prone to induce endogenous cyclical and chaotic dynamics the more open the economy and the higher the degree of exchange rate pass-through. The existence of these dynamics and their dependence on the degree of openness are in general robust to different timings of the rule (forward-looking versus contemporaneous rules), to the use of alternative measures of inflation in the rule (CPI versus Core inflation), as well as to changes in the timing of real money balances in liquidity services ("cash-when-I-am-done" timing versus "cash-in-advance" timing).

Keywords: Small open economy, interest rate rules, multiple equilibria, chaos, endogenous fluctuations

Abstract:

In this paper we show that, in the aftermath of a currency crisis, a government that adjusts the nominal interest rate in response to domestic currency depreciation can induce aggregate instability in the economy by generating self-fulfilling endogenous cycles. We find that, if a government raises the interest rate proportionally more than an increase in currency depreciation, then it induces selffulfilling cycles that, driven by people's expectations about depreciation, replicate several of the salient stylized facts of the "Sudden Stop" phenomenon. These facts include a decline in domestic production and aggregate demand, a collapse in asset prices, a sharp correction in the price of traded goods relative to non-traded goods, an improvement in the current account deficit, a moderately higher CPI-inflation, more rapid currency depreciation, and higher nominal interest rates. In this sense, an interest rate policy that responds to depreciation may have contributed to generating the dynamic cycles experienced by some economies in the aftermath of a currency crisis.

Keywords: Small Open Economy, Interest Rate Policies, Currency Depreciation, Self-fulfilling Cycles, Sudden Stops, Collateral Constraints

Abstract:

This paper explores the baby boom's impact on U.S. house prices and interest rates in the post-war 20th century and beyond. Using a simple Lucas asset pricing model, I quantitatively account for the increase in real house prices, the path of real interest rates, and the timing of low-frequency fluctuations in real house prices. The model predicts that the primary force underlying the evolution of real house prices is the systematic and predictable changes in the working age population driven by the baby boom. The model is calibrated to U.S. data and tested on international data. One surprising success of the model is its ability to predict the boom and bust in Japanese real estate markets around 1974 and 1990.

Keywords: Asset pricing, yield curve, great moderation

Abstract:

This paper assesses some of the explanations that have been put forward for the global pattern of current account imbalances that has emerged in recent years: in particular, the large U.S. current account deficit and the large surpluses of the Asian developing economies. Based on the approach developed by Chinn and Prasad (2003), we use data for 61 countries during 1982-2003 to estimate panel regression models for the ratio of the current account balance to GDP. We find that a model that includes as its explanatory variables the standard determinants of current accounts proposed in the literature--per capita income, relative growth rates, the fiscal balance, demographic variables, and economic openness--can account for neither the large U.S. deficit nor large Asian surpluses of the 1997-2003 period. However, when we include a variable representing financial crises, which might be expected to restrain domestic demand and boost the current account balance, the model explains much of developing Asia's swing into surplus since 1997. Even so, the model cannot explain why the capital outflows associated with Asia's current account surpluses were channeled primarily into the U.S. economy. Observers have pointed to strong growth performance and a favorable institutional environment as elements attracting foreign investment into the United States, and we found strong evidence that good performance in these areas significantly reduces the current account balance. While a model incorporating these factors still fails to predict the large U.S. current account deficit (and, in fact, predicts a slight surplus), it does predict a U.S. current account balance that is relatively weaker than the aggregate balance of developing Asia.

Keywords: Capital flows, financial crisis, current account

Abstract:

This paper develops a quantitative, dynamic, open-economy model which endogenously generates high exchange rate volatility, whereas a low degree of pass-through stems from both nominal rigidities (in the form of local currency pricing) and price discrimination. We model real exchange rate volatility in response to real shocks by reconsidering and extending two approaches suggested by the quantitative literature (one by Backus Kehoe and Kydland [1995], the other by Chari, Kehoe and McGrattan [2003]), within a common framework with incomplete markets and segmented domestic economies. Our model accounts for a variable degree of ERPT over different horizons. In the short run, we find that a very small amount of nominal rigidities--consistent with the evidence in Bils and Klenow [2004--lowers the elasticity of import prices at border and consumer level to 27% and 13%, respectively. Still, exchange rate depreciation worsens the terms of trade -- in accord with the evidence stressed by Obstfeld and Rogoff [2000]. In the long run, exchange-rate pass-through coefficients are also below one, as a result of price discrimination. The latter is an implication of distribution services, which makes the goods demand elasticity market specific.

Keywords: International Business Cycles, exchange-rate volatility, international transmission, pass-through, DSGE models

Abstract:

This paper documents the impact of U.S. monetary policy announcement surprises on equity indexes in sixteen countries, covering both developed and emerging economies. Using high-frequency intraday data, I find a large and significant response of Asian, European, and Latin American equity indexes to U.S. monetary policy announcement surprises at short time horizons. In this paper, I use two proxies for monetary policy surprises: a surprise change to the current target federal funds rate, and a revision to the path of future monetary policy (Gürkaynak, Sack, and Swanson (2004)). Consistent with results for the U.S. equity market, this paper finds that in most cases foreign equity indexes react only to a surprise change in the current target rate. On average, a hypothetical unanticipated 25-basis-point cut in the federal funds target rate is associated with a 1/2 to 2-1/2 percent increase in foreign equity indexes. The variation of the response across countries appears to be more related to the degree of financial integration with the United States than it is to trade linkages with the United States or the degree of exchange rate flexibility.

Keywords: Monetary policy announcements, international stock markets, high-frequency data

Abstract:

Publicly traded financial firms within the European Union will be required to adhere to International Accounting Standards (IAS) in their financial reporting beginning in 2005, which can entail a higher degree of financial disclosure than was previously mandated under national accounting standards. A number of European financial firms had previously subjected themselves to additional disclosure by listing their stock on U.S. exchanges, which obligates them to reconcile their financial accounts to U.S. GAAP (Generally Accepted Accounting Principles). Among national accounting systems, U.S. GAAP is considered to be both among the strictest and the most similar to International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). To test whether U.S. GAAP reconciliation effectively enhances disclosure, we examine several measures of transparency for the cross-listed firms, relative both to pre-listing measures and to a control sample of firms that have not cross-listed. Our measures include bid-ask spreads, earnings forecast errors, analyst coverage, dispersion in earnings expectations, and disagreement between Moody's and S&P's bond ratings. We find evidence that cross-listing increases transparency in at least some cases. Our cross-sectional results also distinguish a handful of European financial firms that had already adopted IFRS before the European Commission announced that IAS would be required in the near future, with results similar to those of the cross-listed firms. Accordingly, to the extent that commitment to increased transparency has been a motivation for cross-listing, the adoption of IAS in Europe may reduce the incentives for European firms to cross-list in the United States.

Keywords: International Accounting Standards, bid-ask spreads, earnings estimates

Abstract:

We show that the standard procedure for estimating long-run identified vector autoregressions uses a particular estimator of the zero-frequency spectral density matrix of the data. We develop alternatives to the standard procedure and evaluate the properties of these alternative procedures using Monte Carlo experiments in which data are generated from estimated real business cycle models. We focus on the properties of estimated impulse response functions. In our examples, the alternative procedures have better small sample properties than the standard procedure, with smaller bias, smaller mean square error and better coverage rates for estimated confidence intervals.

Keywords: Technology shocks, hours worked, frequency domain, spectral density matrix

Abstract:

This paper examines periods of pronounced rises and falls of real house prices since 1970 in eighteen major industrial countries, with particular focus on the lessons for monetary policy. We find that real house prices are pro-cyclical--co-moving with real GDP, consumption, investment, CPI inflation, budget and current account balances, and output gaps. House price booms are typically preceded by a period of easing monetary policy, but then diminishing slack and rising inflation lead monetary authorities to begin tightening policy before house prices peak. In a careful reading of official reports, speeches, and minutes, we find little evidence that foreign central banks have reacted to past episodes of rising real house prices beyond taking into account their implications for inflation and output growth. However, central bankers have expressed a range of opinions in the more recent policy debate with some willing in certain cases to raise policy rates to try to stem current and future surges in asset prices while others favor moral suasion or a hands-off approach. Finally, we characterize the risks associated with house-price reversals. Although mortgage lenders in some countries have significant exposure to house prices, the balance of evidence suggests that this exposure does not, in and of itself, pose a significant risk to financial stability. Nevertheless, the co-movement of both property prices and default rates with the business cycle means that losses on mortgage lending are likely to be higher when banks' other lines of business are also performing poorly.

Keywords: Asset prices, business cycles, bubbles, financial stability

Abstract:

Foreign flows have an economically large and statistically significant impact on long-term interest rates. Controlling for various macroeconomic factors we estimate that had there been no foreign flows into U.S. bonds over the past year, the 10-year Treasury yield would currently be 150 basis points higher; even a step-down to average inflows would imply an increase of 105 basis points. The impact of the headline-making foreign official flows -- a relatively small subset of total foreign accumulation of U.S. bonds -- is also significant but markedly smaller. Our results are robust to a number of alternative specifications.

Keywords: Bond yields, Japan, China

Abstract:

The economic embargo imposed on South Africa between 1985 and 1993 brought the country closer to financial isolation. This paper interprets the imposition and removal of the embargo as financial autarky and financial integration 'natural experiments', and studies the effects on the economy. The aggregate data indicate a decrease in the levels and growth rates of investment, capital, and output during the embargo period relative to the pre-embargo and post-embargo periods. To further rationalize the findings in the aggregate data, we calibrate a neoclassical growth model to the South African economy. During the transition to steady-state, we model the embargo by limiting the country's ability to borrow for a period corresponding to the duration of the embargo. The derived dynamics for investment, capital, and output support the view of a positive (negative) link between financial integration (isolation) and economic growth.

Keywords: International finance, embargo, autarky, financial integration, financial isolation, economic growth

Abstract:

This paper discusses the econometric methodology of general-to-specific modeling, in which the modeler simplifies an initially general model that adequately characterizes the empirical evidence within his or her theoretical framework. Central aspects of this approach include the theory of reduction, dynamic specification, model selection procedures, model selection criteria, model comparison, encompassing, computer automation, and empirical implementation. This paper thus reviews the theory of reduction, summarizes the approach of general-to-specific modeling, and discusses the econometrics of model selection, noting that general-to-specific modeling is the practical embodiment of reduction. This paper then summarizes fifty-seven articles key to the development of general-to-specific modeling.

Keywords: Cointegration, conditional models, data mining, diagnostic testing, dynamic specification, econometric methodology, encompassing, equilibrium correction models, error correction models, exogeneity, general-to-specific modeling, model comparison, model design, model evaluation, model selection, non-nested hypotheses, PcGets, PcGive, reduction, specific-to-general modeling

Abstract:

This paper examines episodes of sudden large exchange rate depreciations (currency crashes) in industrial countries and characterizes the behavior of government bond yields during and after these crashes. The most important determinant of changes in bond yields appears to be inflationary expectations. When inflation is high and rising at the time of a currency crash, bond yields tend to rise. Otherwise-and in every currency crash since 1985-bond yields tend to fall. Over the past 20 years, inflation rates have been remarkably stable in industrial countries after currency crashes.

Keywords: Exchange rate, depreciation, interest rate, inflation

Abstract:

Explanations of the persistent deficit in U.S. net exports of goods rest on macroeconomic developments and an asymmetry in elasticities: the income elasticity for imports being larger than the income elasticity for exports. Such macroeconomic developments are not applicable to the equally persistent surplus in U.S. net exports of services unless the income elasticities for services exhibit the reversed asymmetry. There have been surprisingly few attempts to demonstrate the existence of this reversed asymmetry, a task that I undertake here. Specifically, I estimate income and price elasticities for U.S. trade in services and evaluate the importance of simultaneity and aggregation biases. The analysis reveals two findings. First, the income elasticity for U.S. exports of services is significantly greater than the income elasticity for U.S. imports of services. Second, disaggregation is the most important aspect of econometric design in this area.

Keywords: U.S. service trade, external imbalances, income elasticity, price elasticity, general-to-specific, automated specification

Abstract:

In this paper, we describe a new multi-country open economy SDGE model named "SIGMA" that we have developed as a quantitative tool for policy analysis. We compare SIGMA's implications to those of an estimated large-scale econometric policy model (the FRB/Global model) for an array of shocks that are often examined in policy simulations. We show that SIGMA's implications for the near-term responses of key variables are generally similar to those of FRB/Global. Nevertheless, some quantitative disparities between the two models remain due to certain restrictive aspects of SIGMA's optimization- based framework. We conclude by using long-term simulations to illustrate some areas of comparative advantage of our SDGE modeling framework.

Keywords: SDGE model, open-economy macroeconomics

Abstract:

We determine the optimal degree of price inflation volatility when nominal wages are sticky and the government uses state-contingent inflation to finance government spending. We address this question in a well-understood Ramsey model of fiscal and monetary policy, in which the benevolent planner has access to labor income taxes, nominal riskless debt, and money creation. One main result is that sticky wages alone make price stability optimal in the face of government spending shocks, to a degree quantitatively similar as sticky prices alone. With productivity shocks also present, optimal inflation volatility is higher, but still dampened relative to the fully-flexible economy. Key for our results is an equilibrium restriction between nominal price inflation and nominal wage inflation that holds trivially in a Ramsey model featuring only sticky prices. We also show that the nominal interest rate can be used to indirectly tax the rents of monopolistic labor suppliers. Interestingly, a necessary condition for the ability to use the nominal interest rate for this purpose is positive producer profits. Taken together, our results uncover features of Ramsey fiscal and monetary policy in the presence of labor market imperfections that are widely-believed to be important.

Keywords: Ramsey problem, Friedman Rule, optimal fiscal and monetary policy, sticky wages, sticky prices

Abstract:

This paper documents a sustained decline in exchange rate pass-through to U.S. import prices, from above 0.5 during the 1980s to somewhere in the neighborhood of 0.2 during the last decade. This decline in the pass-through coefficient is robust to the measure of foreign prices that is included in the regression (i.e., CPI versus PPI), whether the estimation is done in levels or differences, and whether U.S. prices are included as an explanatory variable. Notably, the largest estimates of pass-through are obtained when commodity prices are excluded from the regression. In this case, the pass-through coefficient captures both the direct effect of the exchange rate on import prices and an indirect effect operating through changes in commodity prices. Our work indicates that an increasing share of exchange rate pass-through has occurred through this commodity-price channel in recent years. While the source of the decline in pass-through is difficult to pin down with certainty, our work points to several factors, including the reduced share of (commodity-intensive) industrial supplies in U.S. imports and the increased presence of Chinese exporters in U.S. markets. We detect a particular step down in the pass-through coefficient around the time of the Asian financial crisis and document a shift in the export pricing behavior of emerging Asian firms around that time.

Keywords: External adjustment, U.S. current account, commodity prices, China

Abstract:

Recent empirical studies using infinite horizon long-run restrictions question the validity of the technology-driven real business cycle hypothesis. These results have met with their own controversy, stemming from their sensitivity to changes in model specification and the general poor performance of long-run restrictions in Monte Carlo experiments. We propose an alternative identification that maximizes the contribution of technology shocks to the forecast-error variance of labor productivity at a long, but finite horizon. In small samples, our identification outperforms its infinite horizon counterpart by producing less biased impulse responses and technology shocks that are more highly correlated with the technology shocks from the underlying model. We apply our identification to post-war U.S. data and find that the negative hours response is not robust to allowing a slightly greater role for non-technology shocks in the variance of productivity at long horizons. We conclude that restrictions aimed at isolating the dynamics of productivity beyond business cycle frequencies do not provide information sufficient to robustly predict short-run movements in labor hours.

Keywords: Productivity, structural VAR, long-run restrictions

Abstract:

Hong Kong plays a prominent role as a re-exporter of a large percentage of trade bound for or coming from China. Current reporting practices in China and its trading partners do not fully reflect this role and therefore provide a misleading picture of the origin or ultimate destination of Chinese exports and imports. We adjust bilateral trade data for both China and its trading partners to correct for this problem. We also correct for differences due to markups in Hong Kong and different standards for reporting trade (c.i.f. versus f.o.b.). For 2003, we estimate that China's overall trade surplus was between $53 billion and $126 billion, larger than that reported in official Chinese data, but smaller than that reported by China's trading partners. We also provide evidence that, in general, the actual origin of a good that is transshipped through Hong Kong is correctly reported by the importing country, but the final destination of such goods is not correctly reported by the exporting country

Keywords: China, bilateral trade data, exports, imports, re-exports

Abstract:

We analyze the association between order flow and exchange rates using a new dataset representing a majority of global interdealer transactions in the two most-traded currency pairs. The data consist of six years (1999-2004) of order flow and exchange rate data for the euro-dollar and dollar-yen currency pairs at the one-minute frequency from EBS, the electronic broking system that now dominates interdealer spot trading in these currency pairs. This long span of high-frequency data allows us to gain new insights about the joint behavior of these series. We first confirm the presence of a substantial association between interdealer order flow and exchange rate returns at frequencies ranging from one minute to one week, but, using our long span of data, we find that the association is weaker at lower frequencies, with far less long-term association between cumulative order flow and long-term exchange rate movements. We study the linearity and time-variation of the association between high-frequency exchange rate returns and order flow, and document an intradaily pattern to the relationship: it is weakest at times when markets are most active. Overall, our study tends to support the view that, while order flow plays a crucial role in high-frequency exchange rate movements, its role in driving long-term fluctuations is much more limited.

Keywords: Order flow, foreign exchange, high-frequency data, news announcements, micro exchange rate economics, private information

Abstract:

Ramsey models of fiscal and monetary policy with perfectly-competitive product markets and a fixed supply of capital predict highly volatile inflation with no serial correlation. In this paper, we show that an otherwise-standard Ramsey model that incorporates capital accumulation and habit persistence predicts highly persistent inflation. The result depends on increases in either the ability to smooth consumption or the preference for doing so. The effect operates through the Fisher relationship: a smoother profile of consumption implies a more persistent real interest rate, which in turn implies persistent optimal inflation. Our work complements a recent strand of the Ramsey literature based on models with nominal rigidities. In these models, inflation volatility is lower but continues to exhibit very little persistence. We quantify the effects of habit and capital on inflation persistence and also relate our findings to recent work on optimal fiscal policy with incomplete markets.

Keywords: Optimal fiscal and monetary policy, Ramsey model, habit formation, inflation persistence

Abstract:

In the last half of the 1990s, labor productivity growth rose in the U.S. and fell almost everywhere in Europe. We document changes in both capital deepening and multifactor productivity (MFP) growth in both the information and communication technology (ICT) and non-ICT sectors. We view MFP growth in the ICT sector as investment-specific productivity (ISP) growth. We perform simulations suggested by the data using a two-country DGE model with traded and nontraded goods. For ISP, we consider level increases and persistent growth rate increases that are symmetric across countries and allow for costs of adjusting capital-labor ratios that are higher in one country because of structural differences. ISP increases generate investment booms unless adjustment costs are too high. For MFP, we consider persistent growth rate shocks that are asymmetric. When such MFP shocks affect only traded goods (as often assumed), movements in `international' variables are qualitatively similar to those in the data. However, when they also affect nontraded goods (as suggested by the data), movements in some of the variables are not. To obtain plausible results for the growth rate shocks, it is necessary to assume slow recognition.

Keywords: Technology shocks, technical change, dynamic general equilibrium, learning, Harrod-Balassa-Samuelson Effect, nontraded goods

Abstract:

Much has been written about prospects for U.S. current account adjustment, including the possibility of what is sometimes referred to as a "disorderly correction": a sharp fall in the exchange rate that boosts interest rates, depresses stock prices, and weakens economic activity. This paper assesses some of the empirical evidence bearing on the likelihood of the disorderly correction scenario, drawing on the experience of previous current account adjustments in industrial economies. We examined the paths of key economic performance indicators before, during, and after the onset of adjustment, building on the analysis of Freund (2000). We found little evidence among past adjustment episodes of the features highlighted by the disorderly correction hypothesis. Although some episodes in our sample experienced significant shortfalls in GDP growth after the onset of adjustment, these shortfalls were not associated with significant and sustained depreciations of real exchange rates, increases in real interest rates, or declines in real stock prices. By contrast, it was among the episodes where GDP growth picked up during adjustment that the most substantial depreciations of real exchange rates occurred. These findings do not preclude the possibility that future current account adjustments could be disruptive, but they weaken the historical basis for predicting such an outcome.

Keywords: Current account deficit, trade deficit, exchange rate adjustment, disorderly correction

Abstract:

A central puzzle in international finance is that real exchange rates are volatile and, in stark contradiction to efficient risk-sharing, negatively correlated with cross-country consumption ratios. This paper shows that a standard international business cycle model with incomplete asset markets augmented with distribution services can account quantitatively for these properties of real exchange rates. Distribution services, intensive in local inputs, drive a wedge between producer and consumer prices, thus lowering the impact of terms-of-trade changes on optimal agents' decisions. This reduces the price elasticity of tradables separately from assumptions on preferences. Two very different patterns of the international transmission of positive technology shocks generate the observed degree of risk-sharing: one associated with improving, the other with deteriorating terms of trade and real exchange rate. In both cases, large equilibrium swings in international relative prices magnify consumption risk due to country-specific shocks, running counter to risk sharing. Suggestive evidence on the effect of productivity changes in U.S. manufacturing is found in support of the first transmission pattern, questioning the presumption that terms-of-trade movements in response to supply shocks invariably foster international risk-pooling.

Keywords: Incomplete asset markets, distribution cost, Backus-Smith's consumption-real exchange rate correlation puzzle

Abstract:

In this paper, we use an open economy DGE model (SIGMA) to assess the quantitative effects of fiscal shocks on the trade balance in the United States. We examine the effects of two alternative fiscal shocks: a rise in government consumption, and a reduction in the labor income tax rate. Our salient finding is that a fiscal deficit has a relatively small effect on the U.S. trade balance, irrespective of whether the source is a spending increase or tax cut. In our benchmark calibration, we find that a rise in the fiscal deficit of one percentage point of GDP induces the trade balance to deteriorate by less than 0.2 percentage point of GDP. Noticeably larger effects are only likely to be elicited under implausibly high values of the short-run trade price elasticity.

Keywords: DGE model, open-economy macroeconomics

Abstract:

We analyze the short-term price impact of Japanese foreign exchange intervention operations between 1991 and 2004, using official data from Japan's Ministry of Finance. Over the period as a whole, we find some evidence of a modest "against the wind" effect, but interventions do not have value as a forecast that the exchange rate will move in a direction consistent with the operations. Interventions conducted between 1995 and 2002, which were large and infrequent, met with a much higher degree of success. For the most recent episode of intervention, in 2003 and 2004, despite the record size and frequency of the overall episode, it is difficult to statistically distinguish the pattern of exchange rate movements on intervention days from that of all the days in that particular subperiod, showing little effectiveness. Still, while the evidence of Japanese intervention effectiveness is modest overall, it appears to be stronger than that found using similar techniques for U.S. intervention operations conducted in the 1980s and 1990s.

Keywords: Foreign exchange, intervention, Japan