Advanced Search
MyIDEAS: Login

Asset prices, exchange rates and the current account

Contents:

Author Info

Abstract

This paper analyses the role of asset prices in comparison to other factors, in particular exchange rates, as a driver of the US trade balance. It employs a Bayesian structural VAR model that requires imposing only a minimum of economically meaningful sign restrictions. We find that equity market shocks and housing price shocks have been major determinants of the US current account in the past, accounting for up to 32% of the movements of the US trade balance at a horizon of 20 quarters. By contrast, shocks to the real exchange rate have been much less relevant, explaining less than 7% and exerting a more temporary effect on the US trade balance. Our findings suggest that sizeable exchange rate movements may not necessarily be a key element of an adjustment of today's large current account imbalances, and that in particular relative global asset price changes could be a more potent source of adjustment. JEL Classification: F32, F40, C30.

Download Info

If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
File URL: http://www.ecb.europa.eu/pub/pdf/scpwps/ecbwp790.pdf
Download Restriction: no

Bibliographic Info

Paper provided by European Central Bank in its series Working Paper Series with number 790.

as in new window
Length: 46 pages
Date of creation: Aug 2007
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:ecb:ecbwps:20070790

Contact details of provider:
Postal: Postfach 16 03 19, Frankfurt am Main, Germany
Phone: +49 69 1344 0
Fax: +49 69 1344 6000
Web page: http://www.ecb.europa.eu/home/html/index.en.html
More information through EDIRC

Order Information:
Postal: Press and Information Division, European Central Bank, Kaiserstrasse 29, 60311 Frankfurt am Main, Germany
Email:

Related research

Keywords: Current account; global imbalances; exchange rates; Bayesian VAR; sign restrictions.;

Other versions of this item:

Find related papers by JEL classification:

References

References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
as in new window
  1. Giancarlo Corsetti & Paolo Pesenti, 2001. "Welfare And Macroeconomic Interdependence," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 116(2), pages 421-445, May.
  2. Faust, Jon & Leeper, Eric M, 1997. "When Do Long-Run Identifying Restrictions Give Reliable Results?," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 15(3), pages 345-53, July.
  3. Lane, Philip R. & Perotti, Roberto, 1998. "The trade balance and fiscal policy in the OECD," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 42(3-5), pages 887-895, May.
  4. Mountford, A.W. & Uhlig, H.F.H.V.S., 2002. "What are the Effects of Fiscal Policy Shocks?," Discussion Paper 2002-31, Tilburg University, Center for Economic Research.
  5. Ricardo Caballero & Emmanuel Farhi & Mohamad L. Hammour, 2004. "Speculative Growth: Hints from the US Economy," NBER Working Papers 10518, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  6. Olivier Jean Blanchard & Danny Quah, 1990. "The Dynamic Effects of Aggregate Demand and Supply Disturbances," NBER Working Papers 2737, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  7. Sheffrin, Steven M. & Woo, Wing Thye, 1990. "Present value tests of an intertemporal model of the current account," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 29(3-4), pages 237-253, November.
  8. Corsetti, Giancarlo & Dedola, Luca & Leduc, Sylvain, 2006. "Productivity, External Balance and Exchange Rates: Evidence on the Transmission Mechanism among G7 Countries," CEPR Discussion Papers 5853, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
  9. Philip R. Lane & Gian Maria Milesi-Ferretti, 2007. "A Global Perspective on External Positions," NBER Chapters, in: G7 Current Account Imbalances: Sustainability and Adjustment, pages 67-102 National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  10. Erceg, Christopher J. & Guerrieri, Luca & Gust, Christopher, 2008. "Trade adjustment and the composition of trade," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 32(8), pages 2622-2650, August.
  11. Uhlig, Harald, 1999. "What are the Effects of Monetary Policy on Output? Results from an Agnostic Identification Procedure," CEPR Discussion Papers 2137, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
  12. Bems, Rudolfs & Dedola, Luca & Smets, Frank, 2007. "US imbalances: The role of technology and policy," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 26(4), pages 523-545, June.
  13. Hamid Faruqee & Douglas Laxton & Dirk Muir & Paolo A. Pesenti, 2007. "Smooth Landing or Crash? Model-Based Scenarios of Global Current Account Rebalancing," NBER Chapters, in: G7 Current Account Imbalances: Sustainability and Adjustment, pages 377-456 National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  14. Ricardo J. Caballero & Emmanuel Farhi & Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas, 2006. "An Equilibrium Model of Global Imbalances and Low Interest Rates," 2006 Meeting Papers 894, Society for Economic Dynamics.
  15. Fogli, Alessandra & Perri, Fabrizio, 2006. "The 'Great Moderation' and the US External Imbalance," CEPR Discussion Papers 6010, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
  16. Gert Peersman, 2005. "What caused the early millennium slowdown? Evidence based on vector autoregressions," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 20(2), pages 185-207.
  17. Maurice Obstfeld & Kenneth Rogoff, 2004. "The Unsustainable US Current Account Position Revisited," NBER Working Papers 10869, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  18. Enders, Zeno & Müller, Gernot & Scholl, Almuth, 2010. "How do Fiscal and Technology Shocks affect Real Exchange Rates? New Evidence for the United States," CEPR Discussion Papers 7732, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
  19. Roberto Rigobon & Brian Sack, 2001. "Measuring the Reaction of Monetary Policy to the Stock Market," NBER Working Papers 8350, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  20. Gourinchas, Pierre-Olivier & Rey, Hélène, 2005. "International Financial Adjustment," CEPR Discussion Papers 4923, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
  21. Faust, Jon, 1998. "The robustness of identified VAR conclusions about money," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 49(1), pages 207-244, December.
  22. Artis, Michael & Ehrmann, Michael, 2006. "The exchange rate - A shock-absorber or source of shocks? A study of four open economies," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 25(6), pages 874-893, October.
  23. Matthieu Bussière & Marcel Fratzscher & Gernot J. Müller, 2005. "Productivity shocks, budget deficits and the current account," Working Paper Series 509, European Central Bank.
  24. Michele Cavallo & Cedric Tille, 2006. "Could capital gains smooth a current account rebalancing?," Staff Reports 237, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
  25. Giancarlo Corsetti & Gernot J. Müller, 2008. "Twin Deficits, Openness, and the Business Cycle," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 6(2-3), pages 404-413, 04-05.
  26. Giorgio Di Giorgio & Salvatore Nistico, 2007. "Monetary Policy and Stock Prices in an Open Economy," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 39(8), pages 1947-1985, December.
  27. Kim, Soyoung & Roubini, Nouriel, 2000. "Exchange rate anomalies in the industrial countries: A solution with a structural VAR approach," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 45(3), pages 561-586, June.
  28. Obstfeld, Maurice & Rogoff, Kenneth, 1995. "Exchange Rate Dynamics Redux," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 103(3), pages 624-60, June.
  29. Clarida, R.H., 1992. "Cointegration, Aggregate Consumption and the Demand for Imports: A Struct ural Econometric Investigation," Discussion Papers 1992_29, Columbia University, Department of Economics.
  30. David K. Backus & Patrick J. Kehoe & Finn E. Kydland, 1987. "International real business cycles," Working Papers 426, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
  31. Matteo Iacoviello, 2002. "House prices, borrowing constraints and monetary policy in the business cycle," Boston College Working Papers in Economics 542, Boston College Department of Economics, revised 06 Dec 2004.
  32. Martin D D Evans & Viktoria Hnatkovska, 2006. "International Capital Flows Returns and World Financial Integration," 2006 Meeting Papers 60, Society for Economic Dynamics.
  33. Karl E. Case & Robert J. Shiller & John M. Quigley, 2001. "Comparing Wealth Effects: The Stock Market Versus the Housing Market," NBER Working Papers 8606, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  34. Michael Palumbo & Jeremy Rudd & Karl Whelan, 2002. "On the relationships between real consumption, income and wealth," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2002-38, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
  35. Lawrence J. Christiano & Martin Eichenbaum & Charles L. Evans, 1998. "Monetary Policy Shocks: What Have We Learned and to What End?," NBER Working Papers 6400, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  36. Maria Milesi-Ferretti, Gian & Razin, Assaf, 1998. "Sharp reductions in current account deficits An empirical analysis," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 42(3-5), pages 897-908, May.
  37. N. Gregory Mankiw, 2000. "The Savers-Spenders Theory of Fiscal Policy," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(2), pages 120-125, May.
  38. Nason, James M. & Rogers, John H., 2006. "The present-value model of the current account has been rejected: Round up the usual suspects," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(1), pages 159-187, January.
  39. Menzie David Chinn & Jaewoo Lee, 2002. "Current Account and Real Exchange Rate Dynamics in the G-7 Countries," IMF Working Papers 02/130, International Monetary Fund.
  40. Muellbauer, John & Murphy, Anthony, 1997. "Booms and Busts in the UK Housing Market," CEPR Discussion Papers 1615, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
  41. Douglas Staiger & James H. Stock & Mark W. Watson, 1997. "The NAIRU, Unemployment and Monetary Policy," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 11(1), pages 33-49, Winter.
  42. Dedola, Luca & Neri, Stefano, 2007. "What does a technology shock do? A VAR analysis with model-based sign restrictions," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(2), pages 512-549, March.
  43. Christopher A. Sims & Tao Zha, 1994. "Error Bands for Impulse Responses," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 1085, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University.
  44. Engel, Charles & Rogers, John H., 2006. "The U.S. current account deficit and the expected share of world output," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(5), pages 1063-1093, July.
  45. G. Peersman & R. Straub, 2005. "Technology Shocks and Robust Sign Restrictions in a Euro Area SVAR," Working Papers of Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Ghent University, Belgium 05/288, Ghent University, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration.
  46. Charles Engel, 1996. "The Forward Discount Anomaly and the Risk Premium: A Survey of Recent Evidence," NBER Working Papers 5312, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  47. Fabio Canova & Gianni de Nicoló, 1999. "On the sources of business cycles in the G-7," Economics Working Papers 459, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, revised Mar 2000.
  48. Gordon, David B & Leeper, Eric M, 1994. "The Dynamic Impacts of Monetary Policy: An Exercise in Tentative Identification," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 102(6), pages 1228-47, December.
  49. Steven M. Sheffrin & Paul Bergin, 2003. "Interest Rates, Exchange Rates And Present Value Models Of The Current Account," Working Papers 9722, University of California, Davis, Department of Economics.
  50. Menzie D. Chinn & Hiro Ito, 2005. "Current Account Balances, Financial Development and Institutions: Assaying the World "Savings Glut"," NBER Working Papers 11761, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  51. Lucio Sarno & Daniel L. Thornton, 2004. "The efficient market hypothesis and identification in structural VARs," Review, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, issue Jan, pages 49-60.
  52. Christopher A. Sims & Tao A. Zha, 1998. "Does monetary policy generate recessions?," Working Paper 98-12, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.
  53. Jon Faust, 1998. "The robustness of identified VAR conclusions about money," International Finance Discussion Papers 610, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
  54. repec:tcd:wpaper:tep16 is not listed on IDEAS
  55. Eric M. Leeper & Christopher A. Sims & Tao Zha, 1996. "What Does Monetary Policy Do?," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 27(2), pages 1-78.
  56. Ben S. Bernanke & Ilian Mihov, 1995. "Measuring monetary policy," Working Papers in Applied Economic Theory 95-09, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.
  57. Fabio Canova & Gianni De Nicolo, 2000. "Monetary disturbances matter for business fluctuations in the G-7," International Finance Discussion Papers 660, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
  58. Giancarlo Corsetti & Gernot J. Müller, 2005. "Twin Deficits: Squaring Theory, Evidence and Common Sense," Economics Working Papers ECO2005/22, European University Institute.
  59. Canova, Fabio & Pina, Joaquim Pivis, 1999. "Monetary Policy Misspecification in VAR Models," CEPR Discussion Papers 2333, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
  60. Robert J. Gordon, 1976. "The Theory of Domestic Inflation," Discussion Papers 250, Northwestern University, Center for Mathematical Studies in Economics and Management Science.
  61. Jaume Ventura, 2001. "A Portfolio View of the U.S. Current Account Deficit," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 32(1), pages 241-258.
  62. Case, Karl E & Shiller, Robert J, 1989. "The Efficiency of the Market for Single-Family Homes," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 79(1), pages 125-37, March.
  63. Blanchard, Olivier & Giavazzi, Francesco & Sa, Filipa, 2005. "The US Current Account and the Dollar," CEPR Discussion Papers 4888, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
  64. Jiandong Ju & Shang-Jin Wei, 2006. "A Solution to Two Paradoxes of International Capital Flows," NBER Working Papers 12668, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  65. Aart Kraay & Jaume Ventura, 2007. "The Dot-Com Bubble, the Bush Deficits, and the U.S. Current Account," NBER Chapters, in: G7 Current Account Imbalances: Sustainability and Adjustment, pages 457-496 National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  66. Gruber, Joseph W. & Kamin, Steven B., 2007. "Explaining the global pattern of current account imbalances," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 26(4), pages 500-522, June.
  67. Eichenbaum, Martin & Evans, Charles L, 1995. "Some Empirical Evidence on the Effects of Shocks to Monetary Policy on Exchange Rates," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 110(4), pages 975-1009, November.
  68. Christopher J. Erceg & Luca Guerrieri & Christopher Gust, 2005. "Expansionary Fiscal Shocks and the US Trade Deficit," International Finance, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 8(3), pages 363-397, December.
  69. Renee Fry & Adrian Pagan, 2007. "Some Issues in Using Sign Restrictions for Identifying Structural VARs," NCER Working Paper Series 14, National Centre for Econometric Research.
  70. Francis E. Warnock & Veronica Cacdac Warnock, 2006. "International Capital Flows and U.S. Interest Rates," NBER Working Papers 12560, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

Citations

Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
as in new window

Cited by:
This item has more than 25 citations. To prevent cluttering this page, these citations are listed on a separate page.

Lists

This item is not listed on Wikipedia, on a reading list or among the top items on IDEAS.

Statistics

Access and download statistics

Corrections

When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ecb:ecbwps:20070790

For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Official Publications).

If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

If references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.

If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link to it, you can help with this form.

If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.