Trade effects of exchange rate fluctuations: Evidence from Sweden

An overview of the theoretical literature for the last two decades suggests that there is no clear-cut relationship one can pin down between exchange rate volatility and trade flows. Analytical results are based on specific assumptions and only hold in certain cases. Especially, the impact of exchange rate volatility on export and import activity investigated separately leads also to dissimilar conclusions among countries studied. The general presumption is that an increase in exchange rate volatility will have an adverse effect on trade flows and consequently, the overall heath of the world economy. However, neither theoretical models nor empirical studies provide us with a definitive answer, leaving obtained results highly ambiguous and inconsistent (Baum and Caglayan, 2006). We purposed to empirically investigate trade effects of exchange rate fluctuations in Sweden from the perspective of export and import in this research. The data comprises period from January 1993 to December 2006, where export and import volumes are considered from the point of their determinants, including exchange rate volatility, which has been measured through EGARCH model. The results for the case of Sweden show that short run dynamics of volatility negatively associated with both export and import, whereas considered from the case of previous period volatility it exhibits positive relationship. These results are consistent with the most findings of prior studies, where the relationship remained ambiguous.

A dislocation based theory for the deformation hardening behavior of DP steels : Impact of martensite content and ferrite grain size

A dislocation model, accurately describing the uniaxial plastic stress-strain behavior of dual phase (DP) steels, is proposed and the impact of martensite content and ferrite grain size in four commercially produced DP steels is analyzed. It is assumed that the plastic deformation process is localized to the ferrite. This is taken into account by introducing a non-homogeneity parameter, f(e), that specifies the volume fraction of ferrite taking active part in the plastic deformation process. It is found that the larger the martensite content the smaller the initial volume fraction of active ferrite which yields a higher initial deformation hardening rate. This explains the high energy absorbing capacity of DP steels with high volume fractions of martensite. Further, the effect of ferrite grain size strengthening in DP steels is important. The flow stress grain size sensitivity for DP steels is observed to be 7 times larger than that for single phase ferrite.