No abstract

No abstract

This paper investigates whether the macroeconomic performance of a smallopen economy depends on the choice of exchange rate regimes. Hong Kong and Taiwan -two economies with many similar macroeconomic characteristics, but different in their choices of exchange rate regimes -provide a good setting to study the relation between the choice of exchange rate regime and macroeconomic performance. We examine the basic facts of growth and inflation and the coefficients' stability of their vector autoregression (VAR), as well as cyclical characters of other aggregate variables in Hong Kong and Taiwan. Our empiric finding indicates that macroeconomic performance is not systematically related to exchange rate regimes.

This paper discusses the reliability of using a Granger causality test to find an engine of growth. The paper first focuses on growth models' cointegration implications since causality must exist in an error-correction model. As a complementary, Monte Carlo experiments with independently generated I(1) variables also indicate a significant probability for rejecting the Granger non-causality null. Given the persistency and cointegration of variables in growth models, rejecting the non-causality null may reflect a spurious causal relationship, rather than confirm a theoretical causality.

This paper presents an empirical study of real exchange rate movements from a consumer's perspective. Trade between two countries creates a link between real exchange rate and terms of trade. It is the private consumption of non-traded goods that induces an equilibrium relationship between real exchange rate and private consumption of traded and non-traded goods. We use Ogaki and Park's (1989) cointegration-Euler equation approach to explore long-run implications from the equilibrium relationship. Given the stationary preference shocks assumption, the testable restriction is that real exchange rate and private consumption of traded and non-traded goods in the home and foreign countries are cointegrated. The empirical evidence suggests that private consumption in the home and foreign countries accounts for a significant fraction of the long run movements of real exchange rate in South Korea and Taiwan. Accounting for real government consumption does not overturn the result.