Expectations regarding the relationship between exchange rates and the prices of traded goOds in small open economies have traditionally been derived from the idea of the relative unimportance of a single small country when trading in much larger international markets. This concept has led to the use of distinct 'small-country' or 'dependent-economy' models to analyse the effects of macroeconomic changes. Thus for small economies like Australia, it is usually assumed that the foreign-currency prices of traded goods are fixed in perfectly competitive international markets. Accordingly, exchange rate movements must be completely absorbed in domestic-currency prices. In other words, the pass-through of exchange rate changes to destination-currency prices must be zero for Australian exports, and complete for Australian imports. Such expectations regarding the degree of exchange rate pass-through contrast sharply with those found in conventional macroeconomic models for large countries, in which pass-through is assumed to be complete for all traded goods. Moreover, they conflict with the results derived from the large theoretical and empirical literature on the microeconomic determinants of pass-through, which suggests that much international trade takes place in imperfectly competitive markets, in which the degree of less-than-complete pass-through depends on industry-specific factors. This study explores these apparent conflicts by re-examining the small-country assumption, with particular emphasis on export prices as the area of greatest divergence. Specifically, it addresses three research questions: 1) What are the theoretical conditions that underlie the small-country assumption? 2)What are the implications for the macroeconomic models of small economies if this assumption is violated? 3) In practice, is the data more consistent with the validity or otherwise of the assumption? The analysis focuses on Australia as a practical example of a small open economy with a high proportion of commodity exports. In summary, the theoretical and empirical results reported in this study suggest that the small-country assumption is unlikely to hold in practice. That is, exchange rate pass-through is more likely to be determined by industry-specific factors, rather than by the universal conclusion of zero pass-through for all Australian exports that is derived from the small-country assumption. Further, they imply that the movement in internal prices required to restore equilibrium in a small country following an external shock is likely to be both larger and more uncertain than has previously been expected. Under such circumstances, the full flexibility of the exchange rate, as the primary and most rapid source of the required adjustments, becomes particularly significant. An important policy implication for small open economies that are subject to frequent terms of trade shocks, such as Australia, is that attempts to manage the exchange rate in order to reduce apparently excessive movements may in fact result in a longer and more protracted process of adjustment through the labour market.

The purpose of this thesis is to examine whether the exchange rate volatility has an impact on Swedish exports. This relationship has been tested in several studies but no consistent result has been found. It is therefore an interesting subject to investigate further and it has not been thoroughly tested for Sweden using aggregated data. Since the exchange rate vola-tility may have an effect on exports, and therefore on the whole economy, the effect can support a certain exchange rate regime. All the data used in this thesis is based on the ag-gregated data for Sweden and the Euro zone between the years 1993 and 2006. The method chosen is a statistical analysis using regressions. Three variables other than ex-change rate volatility were included when conducting the regressions explaining Swedish exports and these are: the real effective exchange rate index, the industrial production in Sweden (“push” factor) and the import from the Euro Zone (“pull” factor). The overall conclusion found was that the industrial production in Sweden, the real effective exchange rate index, the time and lagged values of the export influence the export. There was no evi-dence found that the exchange rate volatility influences the exports for Sweden.

This paper analyzes the extent of foreign exchange rate exposure in Hong Kong, Japan and Singapore in both firm level and industry level in the period of January 1996 to January 2011 by regressing the stock return of a particular industry or firm on exchange rate changes while controlling for overall stock market movements. It is found that exchange rate movements do affect firm and industry value in a manner consistent with expectation and the extract of unexpected exchange rate changes from actual exchange rate changes have little influence on the testing results of exposure. It is also proved that exchange rate regime plays an irreplaceable role in drawing the structure of exchange rate exposure of a country.

Three aromatic poly(arylene ether)s P2¡BP3¡BP4 were synthesized from bis(fluoride)4,4¡¨¡¨-Difluoro-3,3¡¨¡¨-bsi-trifluoromethyl-n¡¨-bisphenyl-[1,1¡¦;4¡¦,1¡¨;4¡¨,1¡¨¡¦;4¡¨¡¦,1¡¨¡¨]-quinquephenyl(n¡¨:2¡¨,3¡¨[G2];2¡¨,3¡¨,5¡¨[G3];2¡¨,3¡¨,5¡¨,6¡¨[G4]) with 4,4'-(9-Fluorenylidene)diphenol. The molecular weight of the polymer (Mw: 105-1.6¡Ñ105, PDI:1.5-2.2) was measured by gel permeation chromatography and the structure was confirmed by NMR spectra. Thermal stability was measured using Thermogravimetry and Thermomechanical Analysis. The polymer had a Td at 520¢J ~550¢J, and soft point at 310¢J. Young's modulus of polymer was (1.25-2.5Gpa). This polymer has high strength, modulus of elasticity, and thermal stability. The polymer consists of polyaromatic groups with bisfluoride monomer, (5, 6, 7 aromatic). We hypothesized that sulfonation of the polymer will exhibit high conductivity and great mechanical properties. Ion exchange capacities (IECs) were evaluated by acid¡Vbase titration. We sulfonated the polymer in order to apply to the proton exchange membrane fuel cell. The results showed after sulfonation of P4, IEC is 3.3(meq/g), and sulfonation of P2 showed that its proton conductivity is 75% more than Nafion117 at 80¢J with 0.28(S/cm). Keywords: proton exchange membrane, proton conductivity, Nafion, sulfonated, ion exchange capacity

This dissertation includes three issues, however, they are all adopted the view of firm¡¦s foreign exchange rate exposure to do the research. The main results of three topics as follows: In the first topic, this study uses the example of a Taiwanese firm investing in China and develops an exchange rate exposure model which depends on only four endogenous variables: the percentage of the firm¡¦s revenues denoted in the currency of trade country, the percentage of the firm¡¦s expenses denoted in the currency of trade country and third country, and its profit rate. The main issue in this research attempts to detect whether producing goods in the third country will affect a multinational firm on the exchange rate exposure and whether the currency manipulation will affect the decision of producing goods in the third country. This study finds that if a multinational firm can effectively adjust operational strategy and match foreign currency income with its cost, most of the exposure can be reduced. Besides this reducible effect of operational strategy, it is worth to note that diversified strategy just works under some conditions. For example, whether producing goods in the third country or not, the firm¡¦s exposure will not make changes as long as the currency is equal to its true value. However, under the case of currency manipulation, the firm producing goods in the third country can reduce exchange rate risk further. In the second topic, this paper studies the sensitivity of the cash flows generated by Chinese and Taiwanese firms to the movements in a trade-weighted exchange rate index, as well as to the currencies of their major trading partners. To overcome the deficiencies in previous researches using variations of the market-based model, this paper adopts the polynomial distributed lag (PDL) model to investigate the relative importance of transaction exposure versus economic exposure by decomposing exchange risk into short-term and long-term components. In contrast to the market-based model, we find that PDL model is better in detecting exposures with evidence confirmed both in China and Taiwan markets. Furthermore, our empirical results also verify past findings in Taiwan market that firms with higher foreign involvement have larger exchange rate exposure, firms with larger size have less exchange rate exposure, firms with larger exporting business are less exposed to the currency of primary exporting country, and firms with larger importing business are less exposed to the currency of primary importing country. However, these results are seldom agreed in China market. These findings imply that the exchange rate under the pegging regime and the floating system significantly affects firms in managing their exchange risk. In the third topic, it is generally argued that the choice of an appropriate exchange rate regime depends on which regime minimizes fluctuations in output, consumption, domestic price level, or some other macroeconomic variables. However, our study provides alternative analytic evidences on the firm-specific behavior. Using the real performance of operating income, this paper attempts to investigate the impact of fluctuating currencies on the values of U.S., Chinese, and Taiwanese companies. We find that the Chinese companies have more short-term exposures under the pegged regime, and the U.S. companies have more long-term exposures under the floating regime. Under the managed floating system, optimal lag length for Taiwanese companies is close to that of U.S. companies. However, the magnitude of exposure for Taiwanese companies is close to that of Chinese companies. These findings imply that the exchange rate under different exchange rate regimes significantly affects firms in managing their exchange risk.

Abstract In stock-exchanged airline mergers, the determination of an exchange ratio is an important issue. The purpose of this paper is providing a simulative study of exchange ratio determination for airline merger in Taiwan. The paper is based on the Larson-Gonedes merger exchange ratio model(1969) and extends it to consider marker risk. In addition, we use the exponential smoothing model to estimate the expected post-merger price-earnings ratio. Our sample consists of China Airlines and EVA Airways. We find that the L-G model indicates the interval of exchange ratios which will enhance, or at last not cause any diminution in the wealth positions of all parties to a proposed airline merger. Also, the bargaining area offers some information to help merger candidates to negotiate final actual exchange ratio.

<p>The purpose of this thesis is to examine whether the exchange rate volatility has an impact on Swedish exports. This relationship has been tested in several studies but no consistent result has been found. It is therefore an interesting subject to investigate further and it has not been thoroughly tested for Sweden using aggregated data. Since the exchange rate vola-tility may have an effect on exports, and therefore on the whole economy, the effect can support a certain exchange rate regime. All the data used in this thesis is based on the ag-gregated data for Sweden and the Euro zone between the years 1993 and 2006. The method chosen is a statistical analysis using regressions. Three variables other than ex-change rate volatility were included when conducting the regressions explaining Swedish exports and these are: the real effective exchange rate index, the industrial production in Sweden (“push” factor) and the import from the Euro Zone (“pull” factor). The overall conclusion found was that the industrial production in Sweden, the real effective exchange rate index, the time and lagged values of the export influence the export. There was no evi-dence found that the exchange rate volatility influences the exports for Sweden.</p>

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 2002. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 100-111).

Thesis (M.Com. (Economics & Economic History)) - Rhodes University, 2009. / A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Masters in Commerce (Financial Markets).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 2001. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 62-66).