Exchange rate misalignments, interdependence, crises, and currency wars: an empirical assessment

Este trabalho tem por objetivo comparar metodologias distintas para cálculo de desalinhamento cambial além de testar a hipótese se as taxas de câmbio dos diversos países sofrem influencia apenas dos seus próprios fundamentos ou também da taxa de câmbio e dos fundamentos de outros países. Estas hipóteses consistem, respectivamente, na ausência ou na existência de interdependência entre os diversos países. Para realizar tal tarefa utilizam-se duas estratégias empíricas. A primeira baseia-se em avaliar se um modelo multivariado de séries de tempo usualmente utilizada na literatura de desalinhamento cambial com dados apenas do próprio país em análise pode ser melhorado através da adição de variáveis relacionadas a outros países usando o algoritmo proposto por David Hendry e co-autores. A segunda estratégia consiste em estimar um panel longo com as variáveis utilizadas para estimar desalinhamento cambial e testar formalmente a hipótese de ausência de interdependências. Os resultados sugerem que em ambas estratégias existe evidência de existência de interdependência. Esta ocorreria mais por conta de fatores ligados ao curto prazo, ou seja, o que explicaria o valor da taxa de câmbio de um país no longo prazo seriam seus próprios fundamentos enquanto no curto prazo fatores externos poderiam causar desvios

Temporal causality between the exchange rate and the trade balance : the case of Brazil

The paper assesses the impact of intemational relative prices and domestic expenditure variables on Brazil' s foreign trade performance in the first half of the 1990s. It has been argued that the appreciation of the Real since 1994 has had a detrimental impact of the country's trade balance. However, using temporal precedence analysis, our results do not indicate that the trade balance is strongly affected by intemational rei ative prices, such as the exchange rate. Instead, domestic expenditure variables appear to be more powerful determinant of the country' s trade performance in recent years. Granger and error correction causality techniques are used to determine temporal precedence between the trade balance and the exchange rate in the period under examination. Our findings shed light on the debate over the sustainability of recent exchange rate-anchored macroeconomic stabilisation programmes, which is a topic that has encouraged a lot of debate among academics and practitioners.

Sovereignty, exchange rate and the Euro crisis

This paper presents an interpretation of the European crisis based on the balance of payments imbalances within the Eurozone and highlighting the role of the “internal” real exchange rates as a primary cause of the crisis. It explores the structural contradictions that turn the Euro into a “foreign currency” for each individual Eurozone country. These contradictions imply the inability of national central banks to monetize the public and private debts, which makes the Euro crisis a sovereign crisis similar to those typical of emerging countries, but whose solution presents additional obstacles.

Assessing interdependence among countries' fundamentals and its implications for exchange rate misalignment estimates: An empirical exercise based on GVAR

Exchange rates are important macroeconomic prices and changes in these rates a ect economic activity, prices, interest rates, and trade ows. Methodologies have been developed in empirical exchange rate misalignment studies to evaluate whether a real e ective exchange is overvalued or undervalued. There is a vast body of literature on the determinants of long-term real exchange rates and on empirical strategies to implement the equilibrium norms obtained from theoretical models. This study seeks to contribute to this literature by showing that the global vector autoregressions model (GVAR) proposed by Pesaran and co-authors can add relevant information to the literature on measuring exchange rate misalignment. Our empirical exercise suggests that the estimate exchange rate misalignment obtained from GVAR can be quite di erent to that using the traditional cointegrated time series techniques, which treat countries as detached entities. The di erences between the two approaches are more pronounced for small and developing countries. Our results also suggest a strong interdependence among eurozone countries, as expected

Exchange rate misalignments and international trade policy: impacts on tariffs

The debate on “exchange wars and trade wars” is raising the attention of experts on international trade and economics. The main purpose of this paper is to analyze the impacts of exchange rate misalignments on one of the most traditional trade policy instruments – tariffs, as defined by the WTO – World Trade Organization. It is divided into three sections: the first one examines the effects of exchange rate variations on tariffs and its consequences for the multilateral trade system; the second explains the methodology used to determine exchange rate misalignments and also presents its results for Brazil, US and China; and the third summarizes the methodology applied to calculate the impacts of exchange rate misalignments on the level of tariff protection through an exercise of “misalignment tariffication”

EU-Mercosur trade relations: impacts of exchange rate misalignments on tariffs

The issue of “trade and exchange rate misalignments” is being discussed at the G20, IMF and WTO, following an initiative by Brazil. The main purpose of this paper is to apply the methodology developed by the authors to exam the impacts of misalignment on tariffs in order to analyse the impacts of misalignments on the trade relations between two customs unions – the EU and Mercosur, as well as to explain how tariff barriers are affected. It is divided into several sections: the first summarises the debate on exchange rates at the WTO; the second explains the methodology used to determine exchange rate misalignments; the third and fourth summarises the methodology applied to calculate the impacts of exchange rate misalignments on the level of tariff protection through an exercise of ‘misalignment tariffication’; the fifth reviews the effects of exchange rate misalignments on tariffs and its consequences for the trade negotiations between the two areas; and the last concludes and suggests a way to move the debate forward in the context of regional arrangements

Trade rules and exchange rate misalignments : in search for a WTO solution e medidas compensatórias

The debate on the link between trade rules and rules on exchange rates is raising the attention of experts on international trade law and economics. The main purpose of this paper is to analyze the impacts of exchange rate misalignments on tariffs as applied by the WTO – World Trade Organization. It is divided into five sections: the first one explains the methodology used to determine exchange rate misalignments and also presents its results for Brazil, US and China; the second summarizes the methodology applied to calculate the impacts of exchange rate misalignments on the level of tariff protection through an exercise of “misalignment tariffication”; the third examines the effects of exchange rate variations on tariffs and their consequences for the multilateral trading system; the fourth one creates a methodology to estimate exchange rates against a currency of the World and a proposal to deal with persistent and significant misalignments related to trade rules. The conclusions are present in the last section

The political economy of exchange rate in Brazil

This paper reviews part of the political economy literature on exchange rate policy relevant to understanding the political motivations behind the Brazilian exchange rate policy. We shall first examine the distributive role of the exchange rate, and the way it unfolds in terms of the desired political goals. We will follow by analyzing exchange policy as indicative of government effciency prior to elections. Finally, we discuss fiscal policy from the point of view of political economy, in which the exchange rate results from the macroeconomic equilibrium. Over this review, the Brazilian exchange rate policy is discussed in light of the theories presented.

Desalinhamento cambial no Brasil após o plano real: uma análise empírica

Filiando-se a discussão sobre os efeitos da apreciação cambial no país, o trabalho procura contribuir para o debate acerca da posição correta da taxa de câmbio e suas possíveis dinâmicas de ajustamento no curto e longo prazo. Neste sentido, apresenta evidências econométricas para possíveis desalinhamentos do câmbio real no Brasil desde 1994. A partir de uma base de dados mensais que abarca o período de janeiro de 1995 até setembro de 2006, realiza-se uma análise econométrica para estudar o comportamento do câmbio real e de equilíbrio no Brasil no período recente

Coordenação entre política fiscal monetária no regime de metas de inflação

Essa dissertação trata da coordenação entre política monetária e política fiscal. O trabalho visa testar a hipótese de que a demanda agregada é afetada pela política fiscal no Brasil entre 1995 e 2006. Com esse intuito, o trabalho estima uma curva IS para o Brasil nesse período, incluindo variáveis fiscais explicativas. O resultado é de que há evidência estatística de que o desvio do produto em relação ao produto potencial (de agora em diante gap do produto) seja dependente (positivamente) do nível de gastos do governo e (negativamente) da arrecadação do setor público. Além disso, conforme a teoria prevê, o gasto do governo tem um efeito (em módulo) mais intenso do que a arrecadação do governo, de modo que tanto o nível do superávit primário, quanto o tamanho do governo em proporção ao PIB têm impacto sobre a demanda agregada. Assim, assumindo que a convergência da taxa de câmbio real via paridade descoberta de taxa de juros tenha sido defasada no período sob análise, a política fiscal pode ter contribuído para manutenção da taxa de juros real acima do nível de equilíbrio no período em questão.

Impactos dos metais e do câmbio na indústria brasileira

Nos últimos anos, o aumento do preço dos metais vem sendo acompanhado por uma forte valorização do câmbio real dos principais exportadores deste tipo de produto, inclusive do câmbio real brasileiro. Com um câmbio real aparentemente valorizado e com um crescimento do PIB abaixo da média dos países em desenvolvimento, a política macroeconômica brasileira vem sofrendo fortes críticas sobre o patamar de sua moeda e sua conseqüência para a indústria brasileira. O objetivo destes trabalho é analisar a relação existente entre o preço das commodities metálicas e o câmbio real dos países, com destaque especial para o câmbio real brasileiro. Estabelecida esta relação examinaremos os impactos que o preço dos metais tem na indústria brasileira e nas exportações brasileiras, seja diretamente ou indiretamente via a valorização do câmbio real que será observada na primeira parte do trabalho. Os resultados nos revelam o que o aumento do preço dos metais foi realmetne relevante para a apreciação do câmbio nos países exportadores e também para o Brasil. Apesar de alguns setores sofrerem impactos no longo prazo, tanto diretos quanto através da apreciação cambial, do aumento do preço do metais, não há evidências suficientes do que se costuma chamar de Dutch Disease, que seria uma deterioração generalizada da indústria brasileira.

Análise do mecanismo de transmissão dos preços internacionais de commodities agrícolas sobre o comportamento da taxa de câmbio real no Brasil

This paper examined the transmission mechanism of international prices of agricultural commodities into the real exchange rate in Brazil for the period from January 2000 to February 2010. We used time series models (ARIMA Model, Transfer Model, Intervention Analysis, Johansen Cointegration Test) in determination of the short and long run elasticities. Transfer Function Model results show that changes in international prices of agricultural commodities are transmitted to the real exchange rate in Brazil in the short run, however, that transmission is less than unity, thus configuring the inelastic relationship. Johansen cointegration tests show that these variables are not co-integrated, no longer converge to the long-run equilibrium. These results are in agreement Cashim et al. (2004), which also found no long run relationship between real exchange rate and commodity prices in the case of Brazil. These results show that monetary shocks have greater weight on changes of the real exchange rate than real shocks.

Exchange rate dynamics in Brazil

The paper aims to investigate on empirical and theoretical grounds the Brazilian exchange rate dynamics under floating exchange rates. The empirical analysis examines the short and long term behavior of the exchange rate, interest rate (domestic and foreign) and country risk using econometric techniques such as variance decomposition, Granger causality, cointegration tests, error correction models, and a GARCH model to estimate the exchange rate volatility. The empirical findings suggest that one can argue in favor of a certain degree of endogeneity of the exchange rate and that flexible rates have not been able to insulate the Brazilian economy in the same patterns predicted by literature due to its own specificities (managed floating with the use of international reserves and domestic interest rates set according to inflation target) and to externally determined variables such as the country risk. Another important outcome is the lack of a closer association of domestic and foreign interest rates since the new exchange regime has been adopted. That is, from January 1999 to May 2004, the US monetary policy has no significant impact on the Brazilian exchange rate dynamics, which has been essentially endogenous primarily when we consider the fiscal dominance expressed by the probability of default.

Câmbio real do Brasil : determinantes de longo prazo: evidências a partir de testes não paramétricos de cointegração e de tendência não linear comum

O trabalho procura investigar a existência de relação de cointegração entre a Taxa de Câmbio Real (CRER), Passivo Externo Líquido (PEL), Termos de Troca (TOT) e um fator de produtividade (BS), utilizando um teste não paramétrico proposto por Bierens (1997), aplicado a uma amostra de dados para EUA e Brasil que cobre o período de 1980 a 2010. Para os EUA, é encontrada evidência da influência das variáveis elencadas. No caso brasileiro verifica-se pouca relevância da variável BS, sendo as demais variáveis presentes no vetor de cointegração.