This dissertation is composed of three essays at the intersection of international trade and finance. In the first chapter, I measure exchange rate pass-through (ERPT) for value-added exports, where intermediate input requires sharing among countries in a back-and-forth manner for producing a single final product. I derive an estimating equation for ERPT and value-added trade following a partial equilibrium model, which also leads to decomposition of the trade elasticity into the own price effect and the price index effects. From the empirical estimation, I find that ignoring the value-added trade will cause a systematic upward bias in the estimation of ERPT. I also find that there exists substantial heterogeneity in pass-through rates across sectors: sectors with high-integration into global markets functions with a lower rate of exchange in comparison to sectors with less integration. The second essay focuses on a specific market, where I examine the relationship between product attributes and ERPT. This paper estimates the ERPT by using good-level daily data on wholesale prices of imported agricultural products, where the identification is achieved by using daily data on the domestic inflation rate. The results of standard empirical analyses are in line with existing studies that employ lower frequencies of data by showing evidence for incomplete daily ERPT of about 5 percent. The key innovation is achieved when nonlinearities in ERPT are considered, where ERPT is doubled to about 10 percent when daily nominal exchange rate changes are above 0.55 percent, daily frequencies of price change are above 3.12 percent, the storage life of a product is above 10 weeks, and for the non-zero price changes, the ERPT is complete. In the final essay, I focus on the firms’ export pricing strategy: pricing-to-market strategy. To achieve this, I introduce a partial equilibrium model of firm’s pricing strategy, where the market share of a firm plays an important role in the determination of markup. The empirical estimation is that markup ranges from 1.25 to 1.5 across years and 1.25 to 51.23 across firms. I also find that markups come back to their average level within 30 to 60 days of the initial date.

The paper examines the hypothesis that the devaluation of the domestic currency leads to the higher exchange rate pass-through at the zero lower bound since the interest rate channel cannot offset effects of the depreciation in that situation. Time-varying vector autoregression with stochastic volatility is used to identify the development of the pass-through. The hypothesis is tested on the Czech dataset because the Czech Republic is considered as the prototypical small open economy with inflation targeting. The assumption of higher pass-through to consumer prices at the zero lower bound is rejected. Obtained results confirm that the deprecation stimulates output growth slightly more when the interest rate is close to zero. Our estimations imply that the exchange rate commitment of the Czech National Bank increased the price level by 0.116 % and contributed to the output growth by 0.781 %.

Thesis (M.A. Commerce (Economics)) -- University of Limpopo, 2019 / South Africa had targeted the oil and gas sector for investment through the industrial action plan as a special economic zone. However, certain economic fundamentals might negate the anticipated sector financial development. This study investigate how economic risk exposure influence oil & gas sector stock market returns from 2007 to 2015 on a monthly basis. The four macroeconomic variables used to measure economic risk exposure are Brent crude oil prices, the USD/ZAR exchange rate, broad money supply and gold prices. The adopted techniques include the GARCH model to incorporate volatility, the Johansen cointegration and Granger causality techniques. The results of the study found that change in Brent crude oil prices and broad money supply had a positive and significant impact on changes in oil & gas sector stock returns. Changes in exchange rate and gold prices had a negative and significant impact on the sector returns. The long-run relationship established one cointegrating equation in the series. Only Brent crude oil prices indicated a bi-directional Granger causality on the sector returns. Based on the findings, it is recommended that government may use exchange rate as a policy tool to attract interest in the sector. Regarding money supply, the reserve bank should further preserve its effective regulatory infrastructure including the laws, regulations and standards towards the achievement and maintenance of a stable financial system. Portfolio managers, risk managers and investors should monitor the gold price to mitigate losses due to its strength as a safe haven asset.

[pt] Esta tese é composta por três artigos empíricos que utilizam dados de venda de uma cadeia de lojas de produtos eletroeletrônicos e de características de seus clientes. O primeiro investiga o efeito de características, como gênero, idade, escolaridade e renda, na probabilidade do cliente de receber desconto. Ele tem o objetivo de averiguar se a autoridade de decisão de preço final dada aos vendedores está sendo bem usada. Quando há discriminação de preços, clientes com renda mais alta devem ter menor probabilidade de receber descontos. Por outro lado, descontos podem ser dados por outros motivos, diferentes daquele desejado pela firma. Uma vez que o cliente percebe que o vendedor tem poder de decisão sobre o preço final, ele pode desejar começar um processo de barganha para reduzir o preço que pagará. O resultado deste processo pode também depender das características do cliente, se estas afetarem a habilidade de barganhar. Neste caso, quanto maior a habilidade do cliente de barganhar pelo desconto, maior este será. Como encontramos que a probabilidade de receber descontos aumenta com a renda e escolaridade do cliente, e o valor do desconto também é maior para pessoas com mais alta renda e mais educadas, concluímos que o desconto não está sendo dado como resultado de discriminação de preços, mas como o resultado de uma barganha. O segundo artigo estima o efeito de informação assimétrica sobre o financiamento da compra de produtos, usando o plano de pagamento escolhido e as características não observadas do cliente. Decompomos o efeito em seleção adversa e um componente causal, usando técnica similar à usada por Adams, Eivan and Levin (2009). Encontramos um efeito marginal significante e concluímos que o efeito causal da escolha do plano de pagamento é maior que aquele causado pela seleção adversa. Um aspecto chave da estratégia de identificação é a escolha da variável exógena. Usamos uma variável binária que é um quando a compra é feita num mês de saldão, meses estes quando há um plano especial: onze parcelas sem juros. A variável usada claramente influencia a escolha do plano de pagamento, mas o repagamento não depende diretamente dela, uma vez que nosso instrumento não está associado ao valor do colateral do empréstimo. O terceiro artigo estuda o repasse para os preços da primeira redução de IPI de 2009. A redução ocorreu para quatro diferentes produtos: refrigeradores, fogões, máquinas de lavar e tanquinhos. Observamos o efeito do IPI nos preços e nas características dos clientes. Encontramos que a ocorrência da redução do IPI gera uma redução de 5,97 porcento no preço, quando usamos um modelo linear simples e uma redução de 2,98 porcento no preço, quando usamos um efeito fixo de produto. Gênero, idade, renda e escolaridade dos clientes que compram eletrodomésticos não mudam significativamente com a redução do IPI. / [en] This dissertation is composed of three independent empirical articles that use data on home and kitchen appliances and image equipment sales of one specific chain store and their clients characteristics. The first one investigates the effect of the client s characteristics, such as gender, age, education and income, on the probability of receiving a discount. It intends to investigate if the pricing authority that is delegated to the salespeople is being well used. If the effect of delegation were to implement price discrimination, clients with higher income would have a lower probability of getting a discount. On the other hand, discounts can be given for a different reason than the one desired by the firm. Once the customer recognizes that the salesperson has some discretion over the prices, she may wish to engage in bargaining to decrease the final price. The outcome of this process may also depend on the customer s characteristics if they affect the customer s skill in bargaining. In this case, the greater the client s ability, the bigger the discount. Since we find that the probability of receiving a discount is increasing in the client s income and education, and the value of the discount is also bigger for people with higher income and better education, we conclude that the discount giving is not a result of price discrimination, but a result of a bargaining process. The second article estimates the effect of asymmetric information on consumer loans, using the payment plan chosen by the client and his observable characteristics. We decompose the effect into an adverse selection and a causal component using a technique similar to Adams, Einav and Levin (2009). We find significant marginal effects for both components and that the causal effect of the payment plan choice is greater than the one caused by the adverse selection. A key aspect of the identification strategy is the choice of the exogenous variable. We use a dummy variable that is one when the month of the purchase is one of the saldão months, that is, when one special payment plan is also available: eleven monthly payments, with zero interest rate. The variable used clearly influences the payment plan choice but the repayment behavior does not depend directly on it, since it is not directly related to the value of the debt collateral. The third article studies the retail market effects of the first tax stimulus episode of 2009, when the government reduced the IPI (Industrialized Products Tax) of certain categories of kitchen and home appliances. Tax rates vary depending on the product. The reduction occurred to four different products: refrigerators, stoves, washing machines and non automatic washing machines. We estimate the effect of the IPI reduction on prices and the composition of demand. We find that the IPI reduction lead to a 5.97 percent reduction on price, when we use a simple linear model and a 2.98 percent reduction, when we control for product fixed effects. The characteristics of consumers who acquire the appliances do not change significantly with the reduction.

The political economy of the exchange rate explains different approaches within the integration process of the European monetary union. The changing character of exchange rate pass-through into the foreign trade prices changes not only the international economy paradigm, but also the attitude to the exchange rate political economy. The study solves the incentives to the different exchange rate arrangement choice during the transformation and integration period in the Central and East European countries. It follows with the analysis of the industry structure in these economies. It discusses the existence of its direct and indirect channel of influencing the exchange rate politics. Article solves the hypothesis of interest group formation in regard to the exchange rate policy (the euro adoption) and the intergovernmental bargaining as well as the bargaining within the economy. The industry analysis results confirm the set hypothesis, in which the heterogenity of industry structure explains the heterogeneous approach to the exchange rate politics during the transformation process in monitored economies. The redistributive change of Hungarian exchange rate policy is discussed in connection with the change of subsidies flow within the political cycle. We discuss the impact of current account adjustment on the tradable and nontradable sector in member countries of currency union -- Euro zone. The current account adjustment associated with the adjustment of the net export's deficit caused by the drop in the domestic absorption evokes the increase in the relative price of the nontradable sector. The paper discusses this hypothesis within framework of the Portuguese current account adjustment, which is the result of European financial integration in catching-up countries. The common monetary policy and common currency cannot offset the negative impact of nontradable price increase within the internal expenditure switching effect and also can not support exporters within the external expenditure effect.. The Portuguese current account adjustment was not followed by the currency depreciation and the tradable price increase. The cost of the currency asymmetric response were born by the tradable mark-up decrease, the falling decrease in nontradable wages and employment and finally by the nontradable mark-up and employment decrease.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-04-26T20:48:54Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 James Hiroshi Habe.pdf: 273240 bytes, checksum: 03be8572f00ddd04542e1cc1675edede (MD5) Previous issue date: 2009-04-27 / Price stability brought to the Brazilian economy a new reality. What was the relationship between price and exchange rate necessary to achieve the new scenario? The exchange rate anchor was the instrument used to reach the price stability. In 1995 managed exchanged rates biased the prices. In 1999 the regime of exchange rate anchor changed to inflation target. The modification in regimes could have altered the relationship between exchange rates and prices. Econometric tests, using monthly exchange rate data, provided evidence of a connection among exchange rates and prices. From 1999 forward, the relations among consumer prices (IPCA) happen through wholesale prices (IPA). The separation of the IPCA in two groups allowed the verification of major influence in monitored prices then in market prices, increasing the IPCA and affecting the monetary policy decision / A estabilidade nos preços trouxe um novo cenário a economia brasileira e qual foi a relação entre preços e câmbio para atingir a estabilidade? A âncora cambial foi o instrumento para a estabilidade nos preços. A adoção do regime de câmbio administrado, em 1995, manteve os preços atrelados ao câmbio. Em 1999, houve a mudança da âncora cambial para as metas de inflação. A mudança de regime cambial poderia ter alterado a relação entre câmbio e preços no atacado e ao consumidor. Os testes econométricos, utilizando dados de variação cambial mensal, comprovaram a existência da relação entre câmbio e os preços. E, a partir de 1999, a relação existente entre os preços ao consumidor (IPCA) ocorreu através dos preços no atacado (IPA). A separação do IPCA em dois grupos permitiu verificar uma maior influência cambial sobre os preços monitorados do que os preços livres, elevando o valor do IPCA e afetando a decisão da política monetária

本研究係探討匯率與總體經濟之關聯性，以中國大陸1996第一季至 2013年第一季之總體經濟變數，共計樣本數為69筆季資料。先以1996第一季至 2013年第一季全期數據進行實證分析。再以2005年7月為分界點，分為1996年第一季至2005年第二季及2005年第三季至2013年第一季數據分別進行實證分析。 本論文就REER、GDP、CPI、M2、UNEMP、CHIBOR、FDI、OPEN等總體經濟變數，以單根檢定及建構向量自我迴歸模型進行實證分析，並以Granger因果關係檢定、衝擊反應分析及預測誤差變異數分解，以了解匯率與總體經濟相互間之關係。 實證結果發現，中國大陸匯率與總體經濟間的關係自2005年7月21日匯率改革後逐漸增強，但整體言之匯率與總體經濟間之傳導能力仍然不大，人民幣匯率的變動主要受其自身影響較多，受總體經濟變數的相互影響較小，顯示其外匯市場的開放程度與一個真正開放的經濟體還是有些許差距。 / This research examines the correlation between foreign exchange rates and macroeconomics by using the data of economic variables of China from the 1st quarter of 1996 to the 1st quarter of 2013. The sample contains 69 quarterly data during the entire period, while the reform of Chinese exchange rate on 21st July 2005 is a crucial division. In order to find the correlation between foreign exchange rates and macroeconomics, the research examines the economic variables such as REER, GDP, CPI, M2, UNEMP, CHIBOR, FDI, and OPEN by using unit root test, vector autoregression model, Granger causality test, impulse response function and variance decomposition impulse response function. The result of the tests indicates that after the reform of Chinese exchange rate on 21st July 2005, the correlation between exchange rates and macroeconomics has been enhanced, but the connection is not prominent. In other words, the fluctuation of Renminbi is mainly affected by the nation’s policy instead of its macroeconomic factors. Hence, the openness of the Chinese foreign exchange market is still distant from a real open economy.

In the financial industry , typical indirect-financial institution attracts deposit, inter-bank loan, or issuing negotiable certificate of time deposit and bonds.¡@After collecting money from excess capital units through auditing procedure then loan to the needed parties as a financial intermediary in the market. The roles of financial institutions such as banks are acting as a financial intermediary by providing buy-sell funding to enterprises or individuals. Those banks actually take whole funding liquidity risk to exchange main resource of bank¡¦s profitability. Once failure in managing risk or facing dynamically financial environment changing, bank may engage in difficulty and cause serious financial crisis. Comparison with large international financial institutions, our financial institutions hold a lot of NPL (Non-Performing Loan; Taiwan major NPL almost came from mortgage), it not only lower the liquidity of fund, longer payment duration but also raise operation risk can¡¦t recover financial assets. The quality of asset has also been worse off rapidly. These phenomena raise financial institution operation risk and influence stability of financial system and development of financial environment. With the financial environment is changing, those developed countries mostly adopted structured finance or financial asset securitization methods. The purpose of financial asset securitization in general is to raise fund for originator. Originator is the most important participant on the securitization process. The originators pool and reorganize those assets, which could create cash flow into small-amount unit security and sell to the investors. By this way originator don¡¦t have to wait till maturity and buyback those securities. That is why by using financial asset securitization will help financial institution to improve asset/liability management, spread asset risk and increase the ratio of equity to assets. At the same time, this will improve the effect and efficiency of finance institution¡¦s operating and open up the funding market. Mortgage securitization can raise banks¡¦ capital adequacy and current ratio. By way of asset securitization, the originators enjoy higher asset liquidity, lower funding cost, and improved capital ratio; while investors can use mortgage-backed securities to diversity their portfolios, improve liquidity and enhance yields. For originators, securitization is not only lower the cost of capital, increase the net profit but also enhances the liquidity of cash and balances the assets¡¦ structure. Assets-backed securitization has been prevailed in USA for years. It effectively controls the NPL (Non-performing Loans) problem and stabilizes financial management. Through financial asset securitization optimal asset allocation model, this thesis has the following finding: 1. Financial market funding supply shows multiple effects after Banking Financial asset securitization. In the initial stage of securitization, banks will lower risky assets and then will increase to original size. 2. After Financial asset securitization, a capital adequate ratio will rise first then become normal level. 3. Under assumption that financial asset securitization does not create any capital gain or loss; bank will lower profitability at initial stage. Then after a while, profitability will increase dramatically later. 4. After consideration of risk, this research discovers that securitization wills steeper Capital Allocation Line. It means every risk taking will compensate higher return. Improve Banking efficiency and profitability. Securitization provides a groundbreaking tool to increase profitability and avoid risk. Under MBS structure, the commissions and fees, absolutely out of risk, is major and stable income of the bank. On the other hand, the successful development of USA RTC implement is another contribution to resolve NPL. In sum, financial asset securitization not only accelerates the efficiency of financial institutions for more balance capital markets but also avoids financial risk in the banking system. At present, the prime theme of he banking sector should be how to maintain sound operations by strengthening credit risk management and restructure assets quality. Introducing successful external professional partner system is another way to deal with NPL problems.

過去實證研究顯示，匯率轉嫁程度並非一成不變，而是具有隨時間變動的特性。因此，有別於過去文獻大多採用滾動相關係數，本文則是使用Engle(2002)提出的動態條件相關係數模型，估計台灣於1982年至2014年間匯率變動與進口價格變動間的動態條件相關係數；並以其做為匯率轉嫁的代理變數，進而探討台灣匯率轉嫁的時間變動趨勢。我們的實證結果顯示，不論是用滾動相關係數還是動態條件相關係數，台灣的匯率轉嫁都明顯具有隨時間變動的特性。雖然5年期與10年期的滾動相關係數均在1997年前後分別呈現上升與下降的趨勢，動態條件相關係數則無類似的現象。然而，由於滾動相關係數容易受到滾動視窗樣本大小或滾動視窗有無包含極端值的影響，使得此方法較無法看出匯率轉嫁變動的準確時間點，而動態條件相關係數模型則可避免此問題。此外，本文實證發現，通膨環境與匯率波動是造成台灣匯率轉嫁隨時間變動的主要因子，對匯率轉嫁皆有顯著的正向影響。在排除1986年匯率轉嫁與進口滲透率呈現短暫負向關係的資料後，進口滲透率與匯率轉嫁的正向關係變為顯著，而進口滲透率也成為影響匯率轉嫁的原因之一。 / According to past empirical studies, it is believed that exchange rate pass -through (ERPT) has the time-varying nature. In this paper, we apply the Dynamic Conditional Correlation (DCC) model of Engle (2002), rather than the rolling correlation coefficient prevalently used by other studies, to analyze the time trend of ERPT for Taiwan. We estimate the dynamic condition correlation between the changes of exchange rate and the changes of import price using monthly data from 1982 to 2014 and use this correlation as a proxy for the degree of ERPT. Our empirical results show that ERPT for Taiwan, whether measured by the DCC or the rolling correlation coefficient, has a significant time- varying nature. In addition, both 5-year and 10-year window rolling correlation coefficient increase before 1997 and decline after 1997, which does not show in the DCC. However, the rolling correlation coefficient does not provide precise timings in the changes in ERPT, because of the dependence on the size of windows and whether or not outliers exist in the window. In contrast, the DCC does not have this kind of problem. Another important empirical result of this paper is that the inflation environment and the exchange rate volatility are main factors which explain the time-varying ERPT, and both of them have positive relation with ERPT. Moreover, the import penetration becomes positively significant after excluding data which shows temporary negative impact of the import penetration on ERPT in 1986.

開放經濟中，匯率可以透過競爭效果及進口型的通貨膨脹抬升價格，或藉由資產負債效果造成通貨緊縮。本文依循 Carranza et al. (2009) 的實證模型，控制美元化程度的影響，並使用Lin (2010) 的動態分量迴歸方法，針對1974Q1-2010Q4期間80個國家，檢驗不同通貨膨脹水準下的匯率轉嫁效果。總體而言，通膨愈高的時候，匯率貶值的擴張效果愈強；但當通膨降低，其強度也隨之減弱。此結果在考慮其他解釋變數或不同貶值情形後仍維持穩健。而當進一步檢視不同國家或期間的匯率轉嫁效果，匯率對通貨膨脹的正向效果，在中低所得國家中普遍較強，但在1995年後減弱，甚至轉為負向。Taylor（2000）的假說，得以在本文大部分的實證結果中證實。 / In an open economy, exchange rate could either increase prices by competitiveness effect and imported inflation, or be disinflationary through the balance-sheet effect. Controlling for the impact induced by the degree of dollarization, I follow the empirical model of Carranza et al. (2009) with a wide panel of 80 countries over 1974Q1-2010Q4. The exchange rate pass-through is investigated at various inflation levels in a dynamic panel quantile analysis suggested by Lin (2010). In general, exchange rate depreciation is more inflationary the higher inflation levels, but the magnitude of pass-through is reduced as inflation become lower. Also, the results are robust with respect to add other explanatory variables or take the depreciation cases into account. Furthermore, to investigate the pass-through across countries or periods, the positive impact of exchange rate on inflation is greater in middle- and low-income countries, but declines and even becomes negative after 1995. The hypothesis in Taylor (2000) is thus confirmed in most part of our empirical results.