IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/zbw/bofitp/bdp2014_015.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The credibility of Hong Kong's currency board system: Looking through the prism of MS-VAR models with time-varying transition probabilities

Author

Listed:
  • Blagov, Boris
  • Funke, Michael

Abstract

​This paper takes seriously the idea that the coefficients of a VAR and the variance of shocks may be time-varying and so employs a Markov regime-switching VAR model to describe and analyse the time-varying credibility of Hong Kong's currency board system. The endogenously estimated discrete regime shifts are made dependent on macroeconomic fundamentals. This enables us to determine which changes in macroeconomic variables can trigger switches between the low and high credibility regimes. We carry out extensive testing to search for the most appropriate specification of the Markov regime-switching model. We find strong evidence of regime switching behaviour that portrays the timevarying nature of credibility in the historical data. Our own conditional volatility index provides anticipatory signals and amplifies the regime-switching transition probabilities. Publication

Suggested Citation

  • Blagov, Boris & Funke, Michael, 2014. "The credibility of Hong Kong's currency board system: Looking through the prism of MS-VAR models with time-varying transition probabilities," BOFIT Discussion Papers 15/2014, Bank of Finland Institute for Emerging Economies (BOFIT).
  • Handle: RePEc:zbw:bofitp:bdp2014_015
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/212801/1/bofit-dp2014-015.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Javier Bianchi, 2011. "Overborrowing and Systemic Externalities in the Business Cycle," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(7), pages 3400-3426, December.
    2. Chen Yu-Fu & Funke Michael & Glanemann Nicole, 2013. "Off-the-record target zones: theory with an application to Hong Kong’s currency board," Studies in Nonlinear Dynamics & Econometrics, De Gruyter, vol. 17(4), pages 373-393, September.
    3. Sungbae An & Frank Schorfheide, 2007. "Bayesian Analysis of DSGE Models—Rejoinder," Econometric Reviews, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 26(2-4), pages 211-219.
    4. Lars E. O. Svensson, 1991. "The Simplest Test of Target Zone Credibility," IMF Staff Papers, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 38(3), pages 655-665, September.
    5. Haroon Mumtaz & Francesco Zanetti, 2013. "The Impact of the Volatility of Monetary Policy Shocks," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 45(4), pages 535-558, June.
    6. Alejandro Justiniano & Giorgio E. Primiceri, 2008. "The Time-Varying Volatility of Macroeconomic Fluctuations," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(3), pages 604-641, June.
    7. Jeanne, Olivier & Masson, Paul, 2000. "Currency crises, sunspots and Markov-switching regimes," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(2), pages 327-350, April.
    8. Hamilton, J.D., 2016. "Macroeconomic Regimes and Regime Shifts," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & Harald Uhlig (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 163-201, Elsevier.
    9. Mumtaz, Haroon & Zanetti, Francesco, 2016. "The Effect Of Labor And Financial Frictions On Aggregate Fluctuations," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 20(1), pages 313-341, January.
    10. Scott R. Baker & Nicholas Bloom & Steven J. Davis, 2016. "Measuring Economic Policy Uncertainty," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 131(4), pages 1593-1636.
    11. Amisano, Gianni & Fagan, Gabriel, 2013. "Money growth and inflation: A regime switching approach," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 33(C), pages 118-145.
    12. Sungbae An & Frank Schorfheide, 2007. "Bayesian Analysis of DSGE Models," Econometric Reviews, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 26(2-4), pages 113-172.
    13. repec:ulb:ulbeco:2013/13388 is not listed on IDEAS
    14. Filardo, Andrew J, 1994. "Business-Cycle Phases and Their Transitional Dynamics," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 12(3), pages 299-308, July.
    15. Marta Banbura & Domenico Giannone & Lucrezia Reichlin, 2010. "Large Bayesian vector auto regressions," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 25(1), pages 71-92.
    16. Carlo Altavilla & Paul De Grauwe, 2010. "Non-linearities in the relation between the exchange rate and its fundamentals," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 15(1), pages 1-21.
    17. Matteo Iacoviello, 2005. "House Prices, Borrowing Constraints, and Monetary Policy in the Business Cycle," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 95(3), pages 739-764, June.
    18. Urban Jermann & Vincenzo Quadrini, 2012. "Macroeconomic Effects of Financial Shocks," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(1), pages 238-271, February.
    19. Philip Arestis & Kostas Mouratidis, 2005. "Credibility of monetary policy in four accession countries: a Markov regime-switching approach," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 10(1), pages 81-89.
    20. Brock, W.A. & Hommes, C.H. & Wagener, F.O.O., 2009. "More hedging instruments may destabilize markets," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 33(11), pages 1912-1928, November.
    21. Giorgio E. Primiceri, 2005. "Time Varying Structural Vector Autoregressions and Monetary Policy," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 72(3), pages 821-852.
    22. Filardo, Andrew J. & Gordon, Stephen F., 1998. "Business cycle durations," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 85(1), pages 99-123, July.
    23. Chib, Siddhartha, 1996. "Calculating posterior distributions and modal estimates in Markov mixture models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 75(1), pages 79-97, November.
    24. Svensson, Lars E. O., 1993. "Assessing target zone credibility : Mean reversion and devaluation expectations in the ERM, 1979-1992," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 37(4), pages 763-793, May.
    25. repec:zbw:bofitp:2013_024 is not listed on IDEAS
    26. Chen, Shiu-Sheng, 2006. "Revisiting the interest rate-exchange rate nexus: a Markov-switching approach," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 79(1), pages 208-224, February.
    27. Nicholas Bloom, 2009. "The Impact of Uncertainty Shocks," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 77(3), pages 623-685, May.
    28. Marta Banbura & Domenico Giannone & Lucrezia Reichlin, 2010. "Large Bayesian vector auto regressions," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 25(1), pages 71-92.
    29. Hans Genberg & Cho-Hoi Hui, 2011. "The Credibility of Hong Kong's Link from the Perspective of Modern Financial Theory," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 43(1), pages 185-206, February.
    30. Urban Jermann & Vincenzo Quadrini, 2012. "Erratum: Macroeconomic Effects of Financial Shocks," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 102(2), pages 1186-1186, April.
    31. Van Nieuwerburgh, Stijn & Veldkamp, Laura, 2006. "Learning asymmetries in real business cycles," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(4), pages 753-772, May.
    32. Nicholas Sarantis & Sylviane Piard, 2004. "Credibility, Macroeconomic Fundamentals And Markov Regime Switches In The Ems," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 51(4), pages 453-476, September.
    33. John Williamson, 1995. "What Role of Currency Boards?," Peterson Institute Press: All Books, Peterson Institute for International Economics, number pa40, January.
    34. De Grauwe, Paul & Rovira Kaltwasser, Pablo, 2012. "Animal spirits in the foreign exchange market," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 36(8), pages 1176-1192.
    35. Stanley Fischer, 2001. "Exchange Rate Regimes: Is the Bipolar View Correct?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 15(2), pages 3-24, Spring.
    36. Gertler, Mark & Karadi, Peter, 2011. "A model of unconventional monetary policy," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 58(1), pages 17-34, January.
    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


    Cited by:

    1. Asa Malmstrom Rognes & Catherine R. Schenk, 2023. "One country, two currencies: The adoption of the Hong Kong currency board, 1983," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 76(2), pages 477-497, May.
    2. Feng, Shu & Fu, Liang & Ho, Chun-Yu & Alex Ho, Wai-Yip, 2023. "Political stability and credibility of currency board," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 137(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. repec:zbw:bofitp:2014_015 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Boris Blagov & Michael Funke, 2016. "The Credibility of Hong Kong's Currency Board System: Looking Through the Prism of MS-VAR Models with Time-Varying Transition Probabilities," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 78(6), pages 895-914, December.
    3. Alessandri, Piergiorgio & Mumtaz, Haroon, 2019. "Financial regimes and uncertainty shocks," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 31-46.
    4. Piergiorgio Alessandri & Haroon Mumtaz, 2017. "Financial conditions and density forecasts for US output and inflation," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 24, pages 66-78, March.
    5. Mehmet Balcilar & Rangan Gupta & Anandamayee Majumdar & Stephen M. Miller, 2012. "Was the Recent Downturn in US GDP Predictable?," Working Papers 1210, University of Nevada, Las Vegas , Department of Economics.
    6. Hubrich, Kirstin & Tetlow, Robert J., 2015. "Financial stress and economic dynamics: The transmission of crises," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 100-115.
    7. Sims, Christopher A. & Waggoner, Daniel F. & Zha, Tao, 2008. "Methods for inference in large multiple-equation Markov-switching models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 146(2), pages 255-274, October.
    8. Jesus Fernandez-Villaverde & Pablo Guerron-Quintana, 2020. "Uncertainty Shocks and Business Cycle Research," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 37, pages 118-166, August.
    9. Michael Plante & Alexander W. Richter & Nathaniel A. Throckmorton, 2018. "The Zero Lower Bound and Endogenous Uncertainty," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 128(611), pages 1730-1757, June.
    10. Mehmet Balcilar & Rangan Gupta & Anandamayee Majumdar & Stephen M. Miller, 2015. "Was the recent downturn in US real GDP predictable?," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 47(28), pages 2985-3007, June.
    11. Brand, Thomas & Isoré, Marlène & Tripier, Fabien, 2019. "Uncertainty shocks and firm creation: Search and monitoring in the credit market," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 99(C), pages 19-53.
    12. Kiley, Michael T. & Sim, Jae, 2017. "Optimal monetary and macroprudential policies: Gains and pitfalls in a model of financial intermediation," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 54(PB), pages 232-259.
    13. Ge, Xinyu & Li, Xiao-Lin & Zheng, Ling, 2020. "The transmission of financial shocks in an estimated DSGE model with housing and banking," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 89(C), pages 215-231.
    14. Lastauskas, Povilas & Nguyen, Anh Dinh Minh, 2023. "Global impacts of US monetary policy uncertainty shocks," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 145(C).
    15. Matteo Iacoviello, 2015. "Financial Business Cycles," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 18(1), pages 140-164, January.
    16. Valeriu Nalban & Andra Smadu, 2022. "Uncertainty shocks and the monetary-macroprudential policy mix," Working Papers 739, DNB.
    17. Petropoulos, Fotios & Apiletti, Daniele & Assimakopoulos, Vassilios & Babai, Mohamed Zied & Barrow, Devon K. & Ben Taieb, Souhaib & Bergmeir, Christoph & Bessa, Ricardo J. & Bijak, Jakub & Boylan, Joh, 2022. "Forecasting: theory and practice," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 38(3), pages 705-871.
      • Fotios Petropoulos & Daniele Apiletti & Vassilios Assimakopoulos & Mohamed Zied Babai & Devon K. Barrow & Souhaib Ben Taieb & Christoph Bergmeir & Ricardo J. Bessa & Jakub Bijak & John E. Boylan & Jet, 2020. "Forecasting: theory and practice," Papers 2012.03854, arXiv.org, revised Jan 2022.
    18. Stijn Claessens & M Ayhan Kose, 2018. "Frontiers of macrofinancial linkages," BIS Papers, Bank for International Settlements, number 95.
    19. Piergiorgio Alessandri & Haroon Mumtaz, 2017. "Financial conditions and density forecasts for US output and inflation," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 24, pages 66-78, March.
    20. Alessandri, Piergiorgio & Mumtaz, Haroon, 2019. "Financial regimes and uncertainty shocks," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 31-46.
    21. Magnus Reif, 2020. "Macroeconomics, Nonlinearities, and the Business Cycle," ifo Beiträge zur Wirtschaftsforschung, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, number 87.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Markov regime-switching VAR; exchange rate regime credibility; Hong Kong;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C11 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods and Methodology: General - - - Bayesian Analysis: General
    • C32 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Multiple or Simultaneous Equation Models; Multiple Variables - - - Time-Series Models; Dynamic Quantile Regressions; Dynamic Treatment Effect Models; Diffusion Processes; State Space Models
    • F31 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - Foreign Exchange
    • F41 - International Economics - - Macroeconomic Aspects of International Trade and Finance - - - Open Economy Macroeconomics

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:zbw:bofitp:bdp2014_015. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    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 CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc 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 RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/bofitfi.html .

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

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.