William Miles

The end of the Asian myth: why were the experts fooled?

Abstract This article examines the reasons behind the overoptimism of a large segment of the economics profession concerning the performance of East Asian economies, which was shattered by the financial crises of 1997–98. It also shows how the crisis placed into bold relief many institutional characteristics of these economies which negate many past attempts to characterize them as open and market-driven.

Covered Interest Arbitrage: Then versus Now

We introduce a new weekly database of spot and forward US-UK exchange rates as well as interest rates to examine the integration of forward exchange markets during the classical gold standard period (1880-1914). Using threshold autoregressions (TAR), we estimate the transactions cost band of covered interest differentials (CIDs) and compare our results to studies of more recent periods. Our findings indicate that CIDs for the US-UK rate were generally larger during the classical gold standard than any period since. We argue that slower information and communications technology during the gold standard period led to fewer short-term financial flows, higher transactions costs, and larger CIDs.

The Foreclosure-House Price Nexus: A Panel VAR Model for U.S. States, 1981-2009

Despite housing’s economic importance, little has been written on how foreclosures and home prices interact in a framework that includes macroeconomic and housing variables such as employment, permits or sales. Panel VAR results for quarterly state-level data indicate that price-foreclosure linkages run both ways. Foreclosures negatively impact home prices. The negative impact of prices on foreclosures, however, is much larger. These results suggest the low-frequency association observed between foreclosures and prices is mostly driven by the endogenous adjustment of foreclosures to prices via the strategic choices of homeowners and lenders, rather than through the effects of foreclosures on home prices.

Exchange rates, inflation and growth in small, open economies: a difference-in-differences approach

Financial crises in emerging markets have led many observers to recommend abandoning fixed exchange rates and adopting more flexible regimes. Moreover, some recent research suggests that the correct exchange rate regime may have a significant effect on inflation and even economic growth. The estimated effect found in such studies, however, likely suffers from an upward bias, as countries which choose a given exchange rate regime have other hard-to-measure policies and attributes which also affect economic performance. Utilizing a recent data set on actual, as opposed to official exchange rate regimes, this article employs the difference-in-differences method, currently popular in applied microeconomics, to a set of emerging markets that switched to more flexible currency policies. Results indicate that, contrary to previous studies, exchange rates themselves exert no significant impact on inflation or output.

Mexico's Business Cycles and Synchronization with the USA in the Post‐NAFTA Years

A number of papers have investigated the increasing macroeconomic ties between Mexico and the USA. These studies have relied on linear models, however, making their results suspect. Other papers have investigated nonlinearity over the Mexican business cycle, but have not studied the links between the Mexican and US economies. In this paper a Markov�?switching model is employed to investigate the changing macroeconomic effect of the USA on Mexico. The findings show that the USA indeed appears to have a much larger impact since the passage of the North Atlantic Free Trade Association (NAFTA) than in previous years. Results also indicate that the level of foreign exchange reserves has much less predictive power for the Mexican economy since NAFTA. This suggests that the greater synchronization with the US business cycle may be more attributable to better macroeconomic management in Mexico than to the closer trade links.

Is monetary policy non-linear in Indonesia, Korea, Malaysia, and Thailand? A quantile regression analysis.

There is a growing literature on the linearity or otherwise of monetary policy in industrialised countries. The investigations have revealed that the reactions of central banks to economic variables depend on the level of the variables, confirming the non‐linearity of monetary policy in these countries. However, research into whether monetary policy is non‐linear in emerging markets has been hampered by the lack of data, as a stable, ‘modern’ monetary regime has existed in emerging markets for only a relatively short time. Employing quantile regression, which is not as constrained as other regression methods by the shortness of time series, we investigate the non‐linearity of monetary policy in four emerging Asian nations: Indonesia, Korea, Malaysia, and Thailand. Our results indicate that monetary policy in all four is non‐linear. All display a ‘hump‐shaped’ response to inflation across the quantiles - policy becomes tighter, going from lower to higher quantiles, reaches a peak, and then becomes looser. These results are similar to those found previously in Japan, and likely arise from a desire to limit exchange rate appreciation, as all four countries depend heavily on exports.

Can money market mutual funds provide sufficient liquidity to replace deposit insurance

Narrow banking is an arrangement in which deposittaking and lending functions are separated and performed by different institutions. This separation is aimed at avoiding panics at uninsured banks, without moral hazard associated with deposit insurance. Money Market Mutual Funds (MMMFs) are promoted as replacements for bank deposits. For MMMFs to compete with banks, they must be able to withstand a monetary shock without losing shareholders in a flight to quality at government-insured institutions. VAR analysis indicates that MMMFsincrease share issue subsequent to a monetary tightening. This bolsters the case that liquidity can be provided in a narrow banking framework.

One Continent, One Currency? Varieties of Common Currency Experience in Europe and Latin America

Currency unions have been promoted as a means to increase trade, investment and growth. A crucial issue in giving up the domestic currency is the loss of a mechanism to absorb real external shocks. High real exchange volatility between countries considering such a policy would suggest that a currency union could be quite costly in terms of large, persistent misalignment and thus balance of payments imbalances. Von Hagen and Neumann (1994) assessed the readiness of nine European countries for Euro-zone membership by examining real exchange rate variability. In this paper we analyze their predictions, and find them to be quite accurate for Europe. All of the nations which appeared ready for the Euro have joined. Of the three which did not appear prepared, two have retained their own currency, and the third has experienced real appreciation and stagnant exports. Given the prescience of this method, we apply it to nine Latin American nations. A number of countries in this region have begun to form a currency union by unilaterally adopting the U.S. dollar. The Von Hagen-Neumann method finds very high real exchange rate variability between the U.S. and the Latin American nations-indeed much higher than that between Germany and the countries which would later adopt the Euro-so adopting the dollar could cause very painful adjustment in Latin America. Copyright 2006 Blackwell Publishing Ltd..

Do frontier equity markets exhibit common trends and still provide diversification opportunities

Abstract Many small, frontier equity markets in regions such as Africa and Eastern Europe have opened in recent years. As in other larger emerging markets, important issues for investors are the extent of financial integration with exchanges in other countries and, if some reasonable degree of integration is found, whether such markets still provide diversification opportunities. Here, we will examine a frequently used metric of integration by testing for the existence of common trends, or cointegration, in these frontier markets. While common stochastic trends are found, results show that coefficients on cointegrating vectors are at times negative, and reaction to deviations from the long-run trend are often slow, thus indicating that frontier markets are a good source of diversification opportunities despite a degree of integration.

Do inflation targeting handcuffs restrain leviathan? Hard pegs vs. inflation targets for fiscal discipline in emerging markets

Inflation targeting has been increasingly adopted in emerging markets as fixed exchange rates have fallen in popularity. An important question is whether inflation targeting provides the same level of fiscal discipline as a hard peg. Using the methodology of Fatas and Rose (2001), results here indicate that multilateral currency unions and currency boards lead to tighter fiscal policy than inflation targets.