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The revival of strong capital flows to emerging economies following the global financial crisis in 2008–2009 has rekindled the debate on effects of excessive capital inflows. We study the effects of official and illicit capital flows on Hong Kong, which is a small and open economy with minimal restrictions on cross-border fund movements. It is found that the official and illicit capital flow measures display a low level of comovement and exhibit differential effects on Hong Kong's equity and residential housing markets. The results highlight the complexity of managing capital flows, and the relevance of sector-specific capital management policies.

We analyze current account imbalances through the lens of the two largest surplus countries; China and Germany. We observe two striking patterns visible since the 2007/8 Global Financial Crisis. First, while China has been gradually reducing its current account surplus, Germany’s surplus has continued to increase throughout and after the crisis. Second, for these two countries, there is a remarkable reversal in the patterns of exchange rate misalignment: China’s currency has turned from being undervalued to overvalued, Germany’s currency has erased its level of overvaluation and become undervalued. Our empirical analyses show that the current account balances of these two countries are quite well explained by currency misalignment, common economic factors, and country-specific factors. Furthermore, we highlight the global financial crisis effects and, for Germany, the importance of differentiating balances against euro and non-euro countries.

We adopt the Jackknife Model Averaging (JMA) technique to conduct a meta-regression analysis of 925 renminbi (RMB) misalignment estimates generated by 69 studies. The JMA method accounts for model selection and sampling uncertainties, and allows for non-nested model specifications and heteroskedasticity in assessing effects of study characteristics. The RMB misalignment estimates are found to be systematically affected by the choices of data, the theoretical setup and the empirical strategy, in addition to publication attributes of these studies. These study characteristic effects are quite robust to the choice of benchmark study characteristics, to alternative model averaging methods including the heteroskedasticity-robust Mallows approach, the information criterion approach, and the Bayesian model averaging. In evaluating the probabilistic property of RMB misalignment estimates implied by hypothetical composites of study characteristics, we find the evidence of a misaligned RMB, in general, is weak.

We use two measures to study two capital flight channels for Germany. One measure is based on the concept of trade misinvoicing and one on net claims and liabilities in the Eurosystem of central banks. For both measures, we propose refinements to enhance the assessment of capital flight. We find that capital flight towards Germany via these two channels has been quite sizable in the recent decade and can tally to about 2% of GDP annually. Regarding their determinants, we show that the two capital flight measures are driven by both common and measure-specific factors. Traditional determinants such as covered interest differentials only play a limited role, while crisis-specific factors such as economic policy uncertainty, the ECB collateral policy, as well as currency misalignment are driving factors of the investors’ apparent flight-to-safety behavior.

This paper examines determinants of the international reserves (IR) currency composition before and after the Global Financial Crisis (GFC). Applying the annual data of 58 countries, we confirm that countries that trade more with the US, euro zone, UK, and Japan, and issue more debt denominated in the big four currencies (US dollar, euro, pound, and yen) hoard more IR in these currencies. We find scale effects in which countries tend to diversify from the big four currencies as they increase their IR/GDP and that a growing shortage of global safe assets (GSAs) induces countries to hold more big four currencies. Countries hold less big four currencies as IR after the 2008 GFC, while they hold more of such currencies since the tapering of the Fed’s quantitative easing (QE). The 2008 GFC and QE tapering weakened and sometimes reversed the effect of several economic factors. We also find that TARGET2 balances matter for the currency composition of IR in the euro zone; commodity-exporting countries tend to diversify their IR from the big four currencies when their terms of trade improve; and that the valuation effects induced by Euro/USD exchange rate changes diminish the significance of the GFC in explaining the currency composition of IR.

The authors examine Chinese-US trade flows over the 1994–2012 period, and find that, in line with the conventional wisdom, the value of China’s exports to the US responds negatively to real renminbi (RMB) appreciation, while imports respond positively. Further, the combined price effects on exports and imports imply an increase in the real value of the RMB will reduce China’s trade balance. The use of alternative exchange rate measures and data on different trade classifications yields additional insights. Firms more subject to market forces exhibit greater price sensitivity. The price elasticity is larger for ordinary exports than for processing exports. Finally, accounting for endogeneity and measurement error matters. Hence, purging the real exchange rate of the portion responding to policy, or using the deviation of the real exchange rate from the equilibrium level yields a stronger measured effect than when using the unadjusted bilateral exchange rate.

This paper explores whether the exchange rate effects of macro news are time- and state-dependent by analyzing and comparing the relative influence of US and Japanese macro news on the JPY/USD rate before, during, and after the Global Financial Crisis. A comprehensive set totaling 40 time-stamped US and Japanese news variables and preceding survey expectations along with 5-minute indicative JPY/USD quotes spanning the 1 January 1999 to 31 August 2016 period facilitate our analysis. Our results suggest that while US macro news are now more important than before the Crisis, the influence of Japanese macro news has waned to the point of near-irrelevance. These findings are of particular importance to exchange rate modeling of the New Era.

We study the renminbi (RMB) central parity formation mechanism following the August 2015 reform using statistical models. We identify the roles of the onshore and offshore RMB exchange rates and the US dollar index in determining the central parity in a linear regression framework. The effect of the RMB currency basket index, however, is revealed after controlling for multiplicative offshore RMB volatility effects. The offshore RMB volatility exerts a dampening effect on the links between the central parity and its determinants. In the prediction comparison exercise, the three selected models statistically outperform the random walk benchmark. Among these four models, the selected multiplicative specification yields the smallest root-mean squared prediction error and mean absolute prediction error. The previous name of the paper was: "The RMB Central Parity Formation Mechanism after August 2015: A Statistical Analysis".

The revival of strong capital flows to emerging economies in the aftermath of the Global Financial Crisis in 2008-09 has rekindled the debate on the adverse effects of excessive capital inflows. We study the effects of official and illicit capital flows on Hong Kong, which is a small and open economy with minimal restrictions on cross-border fund movements. To illustrate the effects of different types of capital flows, we study official and illicit flows on Hong Kong’s equity and residential housing markets. It is found that the official and illicit capital flow measures reflect different facets of flow movements and exhibit differential effects on the equity and residential housing markets. The results highlight the complexity of managing capital flows, and the relevance of policies targeting specific sectors.

This paper examines the driving forces of China’s contracted engineering projects in Africa. Using data on contracted engineering projects in 52 African countries over the period 1991–2010, three groups of hypotheses are tested: (1) economic motives; (2) political ties between China and Africa; and (3) host country characteristics. We find that countries get more projects if they have large market potential and are political allies of China. Our results also suggest that Forums on China–Africa Cooperation promote projects in Africa. In contrast, host country characteristics are hardly related to the amount of engineering projects received.

We study the renminbi (RMB) covered interest differential – an indicator of the effectiveness of capital controls. It is found that the differential is not shrinking over time and, in fact, appears larger after the global financial crisis than before. That is, capital controls in China are still substantial and effective. In addition to exchange rate changes and volatilities, the RMB covered interest differential is affected by credit market tightness indicators. The marginal explanatory power of these macroeconomic factors, however, is small relative to the autoregressive component and the dummy variables that capture changes in China’s policy.

Lowering the policy interest rate could stimulate consumption and investment while discouraging people from saving. However, such a move may also prompt people to save more to compensate for the lo...

Lowering the policy interest rate could stimulate consumption and investment while discouraging people from saving. However, such a move may also prompt people to save more to compensate for the low rate of return. Using the data of 135 countries from 1995 to 2014, we show that a low interest rate environment can yield different effects on private saving under different economic environments. The real interest rate affects private saving negatively if output volatility, old-age dependency, or financial development is above a certain threshold. Depending on a country’s specific economic circumstances, these effects are significant for the economy — a four-percentage point decline in the real interest rate, which is approximately the same as one standard deviation for China, would lead to a 1.52 percentage point increase in the Chinese private saving rate. Further, when the real interest rate is below 1.1%, greater output volatility would lead to higher private saving in developing countries.

We study the differences in currency misalignment estimates obtained from datasets derived from two different International Comparison Programme (ICP) surveys. A decomposition exercise reveals that year 2005 misalignment estimates are substantially affected by the ICP price revision. Furthermore, we find that differences in misalignment estimates are systematically affected by a country's participation status in the ICP survey and its data quality—a finding that casts doubt on the economic and policy relevance of these misalignment estimates. The findings are robust to the use of alternative datasets and specifications. The patterns of changes in estimated degrees of misalignment across individual countries, as exemplified by the Brazil, Russia, India and China economies, are highly variable. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

© 2015 Elsevier Ltd We study China's illicit capital flow and document a change in its pattern. Specifically, we observe that China's capital flight, especially the one measured by trade misinvoicing, exhibits a weakened response in the post-2007 period to the covered interest disparity, which is a theoretical determinant of capital flight. Further analyses indicate that the post-2007 behavior is influenced by quantitative easing and other factors including exchange rate variability, capital control policy and trade frictions. Our study confirms that China's capital flight pattern and its determinants are affected by the crisis event. Further, both the canonical and additional explanatory variables have different effects on different measures of capital flight. These results highlight the challenges of managing China's capital flight, which requires information on the period and the type of capital flight that the policy authorities would like to target.

On August 11 2015, China revamped its procedure of setting the official central parity of the renminbi (RMB) against the US dollar. Our empirical investigation shows that the intertemporal dynamics of China’s central parity are not the same before and after this policy change. They are more variable and have a few new determining factors. Both the deviation of the RMB offshore rate from the central parity and the US dollar index are the two significant determinants of the central parity both before and after the policy change. The VIX index has explanatory power before August 2015, but not after. After August 2015, the onshore RMB rate and the difference between the one-month offshore and onshore RMB forward points show a significant impact on the central parity. While the US dollar index effect remains, we find no evidence of a role for the RMB exchange rate against the currency basket revealed by China in December 2015 in the fixing process.

Using foreign exchange transaction data reported in the Triennial Central Bank Survey by the Bank for International Settlements, we find that offshore renminbi (RMB) trading activity is affected by both the host economy’s characteristics and its link with China. For instance, the occurrence of offshore RMB trading is determined by the economy’s GDP, stage of financial development and free trade agreement with China. When an economy hosts offshore RMB trading, the trading volume is affected by the size of its foreign exchange market, equity market capitalisation, as well as the bilateral link with China through foreign direct investment flows.

The proliferation of carry trade – a strategy of simultaneously shorting a low-yielding currency and longing a high-yielding currency raises the concern on its impact on global asset prices. In this exercise, we examine the implications of yen carry trade for stock markets in a few selected target currency countries. Three alternative proxies for carry trade activity – a currency-specific profit measure, a currency-specific futures position variable, and the Deutsche Bank G10 Currency Futures Harvest Index – are used. It is found that the three measures of carry trade display various degrees of influences on stock returns in Australia, Canada, Britain, Mexico, and New Zealand. The empirical carry trade effect is robust to the inclusion of three control variables; namely the US stock return, the VIX Index that represents market volatility, and commodity prices. Further, the estimation results suggest that the three measures of carry trade share some common information about stock returns in target currency countries.

The empirical determinants of China's outward direct investment (ODI) in Africa are examined using an officially approved ODI dataset and a relatively new OECD–IMF format ODI dataset. China's ODI is found responding to the canonical economic determinants that include the market seeking motive, the risk factor, and the resources seeking motive. It is also affected by the intensity of trade ties and the presence of China's contracted projects. A host country's natural resources have an impact on China's decision on how much to invest in the country rather than on whether to invest in the country or not. China's drive for Africa's natural resources is mainly a recent phenomenon and, probably, became prominent after the “Going Global” policy adopted in 2002.

This study evaluates the role market competition plays in determining inflation based on sector-level data from OECD countries. In theory, trade openness can affect inflation through changes in market competitiveness and productivity. Nonetheless, previous empirical studies often fail to account for productivity effects, and their results may overstate the role of market competition. This study shows that inflation decreases with greater market competitiveness even after controlling for productivity effects. Indeed, when market competition and productivity effects are both accounted for, trade openness becomes insignificant in explaining inflation. The results support that changes in market competitiveness and productivity are the main channels through which trade openness affects inflation. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

We explore the role of interest rate policy in the exchange rate determination process. Specifically, we derive exchange rate equations from interest rate rules that are theoretically optimal under a few alternative settings. The exchange rate equation depends on its underlying interest rule and its performance could vary across evaluation criteria and sample periods. The exchange rate equation implied by the interest rate rule that allows for interest rate and inflation inertia under commitment offers some encouraging results — exchange rate changes “calibrated” from the equation have a positive and significant correlation with actual data, and offer good direction of change prediction. Our exercise also demonstrates the role of the foreign exchange risk premium in determining exchange rates and the difficulty of explaining exchange rate variability using only policy based fundamentals.

The paper assesses the international status of the Chinese currency renminbi (RMB) by recounting and reviewing the recent polices China instituted to promote the use of the RMB in the global market. The evidence suggests that the RMB is gaining acceptance overseas. However, compared with the size of the Chinese economy, the current scale of the use of the RMB is quite small. The path to a fully fledged international RMB will be a distant goal.

Since the 2008 global financial crisis, China has rolled out a number of initiatives to actively promote the international role of the renminbi and to denominate more of its international claims away from the US dollar and into the renminbi. The present paper discusses the factors shaping the prospects of internationalising the renminbi from the perspective of the currency composition of China's international assets and liabilities. These factors include, among others, underlying valuation and management of the renminbi.

Asia's economic integration into the global system has many dimensions. It is part of the broader globalization process that has taken place over the past two decades and involves dynamics of convergence, integration, and interactions of both real and financial activities. Section 1 examines some of the recent trends in the real and financial interactions between Asia and the rest of the world and among different markets within Asia. It contains four chapters on this theme, addressing the issues of macroeconomic similarities and differences, interactions among Asian stock markets and between them and the US equity market, as well as spillovers across various types of financial markets in the region in response to shocks.

In this paper we explore the ‘Mrs. Machlup's Wardrobe’ hypothesis to understand the growing trend of Latin American economies amassing large stocks of international reserves. Using annual data from 1980 to 2007, we examine the relevance of the argument that economies continue to add to their existing reserves stock in order to keep up with the Joneses. We find strong evidence of presence of the Joneses effect. The effect is robust to the inclusion of traditional determinants of reserve accumulation as well as region specific factors including commodity exports that set the Latin American economies apart from other emerging economies.