Reuven Glick

Contagion and trade: why are currency crises regional?

Currency crises tend to be regional; they affect countries in geographic proximity. This suggests that patterns of international trade are important in understanding how currency crises spread, above and beyond any macroeconomic phenomena. We provide empirical support for this hypothesis. Using data for five different currency crises (in 1971, 1973, 1992, 1994 and 1997) we show that currency crises affect clusters of countries tied together by international trade. By way of contrast, macroeconomic and financial influences are not closely associated with the cross-country incidence of speculative attacks. We also show that trade linkages help explain cross-country correlations in exchange market pressure during crisis episodes, even after controlling for macroeconomic factors.

Does a currency union affect trade? The time-series evidence

Does leaving a currency union reduce international trade? We answer this question using a large annual panel data set covering 217 countries from 1948 through 1997. During this sample a large number of countries left currency unions; they experienced economically and statistically significant declines in bilateral trade, after accounting for other factors. Assuming symmetry, we estimate that a pair of countries that starts to use a common currency experiences a near doubling in bilateral trade.

Global Versus Country-Specific Productivity Shocks and the Current Account

The intertemporal approach to the current account is often regarded as theoretically elegant but of limited empirical significance. This paper derives highly tractable current account and investment specifications that we estimate without resorting to calibration or simulation methods. In time-series data for eight industrialized countries, we find that country-specific productivity shocks tend to worsen the current account, whereas global shocks have little effect. Both types of shock raise investment. It is a puzzle, however, for the intertemporal model that long-lasting local productivity shocks have a larger impact effect on investment than on current account.

Currency Crises, Capital Account Liberalization, and Selection Bias

Are countries with unregulated capital flows more vulnerable to currency crises? Efforts to answer this question properly must control for “self selection” bias since countries with liberalized capital accounts may also have more sound economic policies and institutions that make them less likely to experience crises. We employ a matching and propensity score methodology to address this issue in a panel analysis of developing countries. Our results suggest that, after controlling for sample selection bias, countries with liberalized capital accounts experience a lower likelihood of currency crises. That is, when two countries have the same likelihood of allowing free movement of capital (based on historical evidence and a very similar set of economic and political characteristics)—and one country imposes controls and the other does not-- the country without controls has a lower likelihood of experiencing a currency crisis. This result is at odds with the conventional wisdom and suggests that the benefits of capital market liberalization for external stability are substantial.

Military expenditure, threats, and growth

This paper clarifies one of the puzzling results of the economic growth literature: the impact of military expenditure is frequently found to be non-significant or negative, yet most countries spend a large fraction of their GDP on defense and the military. We start by empirical evaluation of the non-linear interactions between military expenditure, external threats, corruption, and other relevant controls. While growth falls with higher levels of military spending, given the values of the other independent variables, we show that military expenditure in the presence of threats increases growth. We explain the presence of these non-linearities in an extended version of Barro and Sala-i-Martin (1995), allowing the dependence of growth on the severity of external threats, and on the effective military expenditure associated with these threats.

Financial liberalization in the Pacific Basin: Implications for real interest rate linkages☆

Abstract Empirical estimates are obtained that indicate the degree of linkage between domestic real interest rates in Pacific Basin countries and those in the United States has increased as financial liberalization in the region has proceeded. J. Japan. Int. Econ. , March 1990, 4 (1), pp. 36–48. Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, San Francisco, California 94120-7702; University of California, Santa Cruz, California 95060.

Financial Crises in Emerging Markets

This book looks at numerous financial crises, beginning with Mexico in 1994–5, the Asian crisis of 1997–8, and the crises in Russia, Brazil, and other Latin American countries in 1998–9. Such contemporary crises illustrate the risks of financial volatility and macroeconomic instability during the process of economic growth and development. They also raise issues regarding the management of risks associated with liberalization and global integration, particularly in financial markets. Concerns about the implications of international capital flows for developing countries have grown with the sharply increased volume of these flows since the late 1980s. The essays in this volume provide analysis and evidence on the determinants of currency and banking crises in emerging markets, the specific roles of capital flows and the financial sector, and the appropriateness of various policy responses.

Capital Controls and Exchange Rate Instability in Developing Economies

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Exchange Rate Regimes and International Trade

The existing evidence on the volume effects of exchange rate risk and exchange rate regime choice is examined. The analysis involves estimating the effects of cross-country differences in exchange rate regime on export and import elasticities using a continuous measure of the degree of exchange rate flexibility. It is argued that risk for firms involved in international trade tends to decrease with greater exchange rate flexibility. In formulating our hypotheses we argued that the cross-country variation in U.S. export elasticities with respect to the real exchange rate and foreign GDPs is primarily attributable to the cross- country variation in bilateral exchange rate regime-related risk. The empirical results showed that U.S. export elasticities increase with the degree of bilateral exchange rate flexibility of the importing country. We interpreted this result as an indication that the total macroeconomic risk exporters face decreases as the degree of exchange rate flexibility increases.

Global Price Dispersion: Are Prices Converging or Diverging?

This paper documents significant time-variation in the degree of global price convergence over the last two decades. In particular, there appears to be a general U-shaped pattern with price dispersion first falling and then rising in recent years, a pattern which is remarkably robust across country groupings and commodity groups. This time-variation is difficult to explain in terms of the standard gravity equation variables common in the literature, as these tend not to vary much over time or have not risen in recent years. However, regression analysis indicates that this time-varying pattern coincides well with oil price fluctuations, which are clearly time-varying and have risen substantially since the late 1990s. As a result, this paper offers new evidence on the role of transportation costs in driving international price dispersion.