The Economics of Modern Imperialism

This work focuses exclusively on the modern economic aspects of imperialism. We define it as a persistent and long-term net appropriation of surplus value by the high-technology imperialist countries from the low-technology dominated countries. This process is placed within the secular tendential fall in profitability, not only in the imperialist countries but also in the dominated ones. We identify four channels through which surplus value flows to the imperialist countries: currency seigniorage; income flows from capital investments; unequal exchange through trade; and changes in exchange rates. We pay particular attention to the theorisation and quantification of international UE and of exchange-rate movements. Concerning UE, we extend Marx’s transformation procedure to the international setting. We use two variables in the analysis of UE: the organic composition of capital and the rate of exploitation, and we measure which of these two variables is more important in contributing to UE transfers. We research a time span longer than in any previous study. We also introduce the distinction between narrow and broad unequal exchange according to whether two countries are assumed to trade only with each other or also with the rest of the world. As for the analysis of the exchange rates as a channel for appropriation of international surplus value, we reject conventional approaches because they are rooted in equilibrium theory. We find very strong empirical evidence that exchange rates tend towards the point at which the productivities are equalised. This is only a tendency because this equalisation is inherently incompatible with the nature of imperialism. Finally, given its topicality, we apply our analysis to the relation between the US and China and find that China is not an imperialist country according to our definition and data.

Volatility Exchange Rate and Economic Growth: Insight from ASEAN Member Countries

This study aims to determine the effect of exchange rate volatility on economic growth in the ASEAN member countries (Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, and Cambodia) through investment. Based on the previous studies, the researcher focuses on developing the initial research analysis because it can control different company levels' characteristics and then determine the impact of exchange rate changes on economic growth mediated by investment. There is a limited analysis of whether exchange rate movements encourage overall investment in this study's particular direction. The author's primary focus is whether the export or import channels or both play an essential role in determining a company's investment. This study's population is in ASEAN member countries that have been published by the World Bank (https://www.worldbank.org/) and continue to exist during the period 1998-2019. The sample selection in this study used a purposive sampling method. Some of the ratio data were available in the financial report summary. The analysis method used in the study is the path analysis.

Dynamic Effects of Exchange Rate Movements on Productivity Levels: New Evidence From Nigeria Based on NARDL

The dynamic relationship between exchange rate movements (appreciation and depreciation) and macroeconomic fundamentals had preoccupied the minds of researchers across the globe. Consequently, extensive research works have been conducted to unravel the puzzle; however, the findings remain inconclusive. The inconclusiveness of these researches may not be unconnected with the choice of model, the omission of key variables and erroneous assumption of symmetric interrelationships of the variables. To mitigate such error and fill the observed research gaps, this study leveraged on the non-linear autoregressive distributed lag to trace the possible asymmetric pass-through of the exchange rate to output growth in Nigeria. The study made use of monthly time series for the period 2000M1–2018M12 for empirical estimations. The empirical findings reveal an asymmetric pass-through from exchange rate to productivity. Exchange rate depreciation led to output retardation in the short run, but neither appreciation nor depreciation of the exchange affected output in the long run. The findings highlight that exchange rate depreciation of the local currency does not improve the country’s productivity. This reveals a disconnection and misalignment between exchange and productivity in Nigeria. The findings call for proper alignment of the Naira exchange rate with the U.S. dollar for improved productivity in the economy.

An Investigation into the Sources of Depreciations in Mongolian Tugrik Exchange Rate: A Structural VAR Approach

This paper empirically investigates the sources of fluctuations in real and nominal Mongolian Tugrik (MNT) exchange rates by estimating the structural vector autoregressive (SVAR) model over the period January 1994–May 2021 and decomposing the exchange rate series into stochastic components induced by real and nominal shocks under the assumption of the long-run neutrality of nominal shocks on the real exchange rate level. The empirical results show that the real MNT exchange rate movements are primarily due to the real shocks, while the nominal shocks have a major role in explaining nominal exchange rate movements in the short and long run. The nominal exchange rate shows a delayed over-shooting occurring between one and three years after a nominal shock hits the economy. The long-run effect of a monthly one standard deviation nominal shock on nominal MNT exchange rate is 2.5%, which results in a permanent divergence between real and nominal MNT exchange rate and causes non-cointegrated relation between real and nominal MNT exchange rates. The historical decomposition of forecast error indicates that the nominal shock plays a significant role in explaining the depreciation in nominal MNT exchange rate over the last three decades. Our recommendation is to stop “cash handling” policy, minimize monetary shock, and coordinate fiscal and monetary policies to avoid large nominal depreciation.

On resolving exchange rate exposure puzzle: evidence from Chinese stock market

PurposeIt has been increasingly recognized that exchange rate changes affect the cash flow and the value of firms. Existing studies on exchange rate exposure do not have much success in finding significant exposure, and the failure to find this relationship empirically has been termed “exposure puzzle”. Motivated by the limited success in detecting significant exchange rate exposure in the extant literature, China's exchange rate regime reform in 2005, the increasing role of China's stock market played in the global financial market and its attractiveness in international portfolio diversification, the purpose of this paper is to resolve the so-called “exposure puzzle” and thus make a contribution to the literature by investigating whether the renminbi (RMB) exchange rate movements have any significant impact on China's stock market from the perspective of US investors who may want to diversify their portfolios with Chinese stocks.Design/methodology/approachSince previous studies which rely heavily on the standard Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) or seemingly unrelated regression (SUR) method of estimation with the assumption of constant variance of firm's or industry's returns do not have much success in detecting significant exchange rate exposure, in this study, we apply an asymmetric GARCH(1,1) with generalized error distribution (GED) model which takes conditional heteroscedasticity and leptokurtosis of asset returns into account in the estimation of first- and second-moment exchange rate exposure.FindingsUsing weekly data over the period August 10, 2005–January 1, 2020 on 40 Chinese sector stock returns, the authors find strong evidence of first-moment exchange rate exposure. In particular, 65% (26 out of 40) of sectors examined have significant first-moment exposures and 73.08% (19 out of 26) of these significant first-moment exposures are asymmetric. For the second-moment exchange rate exposures, they are less frequently detected with 20% (8 out of 40) significant cases. These results are robust to whether an unorthogonalized or orthogonalized bilateral US dollar (USD)/Chinese Yuan (CNY) exchange rate is used in the estimation.Research limitations/implicationsBecause this study concerns only with whether exchange rate movements affect ex post returns as opposed to expected (ex ante) returns, and given the significant exposures with respect to different risk factors found in the study, it is interesting to see if any of these risk factors commands a risk premium. In other words, a natural extension of this study is to test whether any of these risk factors is priced in China's stock market.Practical implicationsThe findings of the study have interesting implications for US investors who would like to diversify their portfolios with Chinese stocks and are concerned about whether the unexpected movements in CNY will affect their portfolio returns in addition to its local and world market risk exposures.Originality/valueThe study extends previous research on the first- and second-moment exchange rate exposure of Chinese stock returns by utilizing an asymmetric GARCH(1,1) with generalized error distribution (GED) model, which has not been fully exploited in the literature.

PALM OIL PRICE–EXCHANGE RATE NEXUS IN INDONESIA AND MALAYSIA

In this study, we extend the literature analyzing the predictive content of commodity prices for exchange rates by examining the role of palm oil price. Our analysis focuses on Indonesia and Malaysia, the two top producers and exporters of palm oil, and utilizes daily data covering the period from December 12, 2011 to March 29, 2021, which is partitioned into two sub-samples based on the COVID-19 pandemic. Relying on a methodology that accommodates some salient features of the variables of interest, we find that on average the in-sample predictability of palm oil price for exchange rate movements is stronger for Indonesia than for Malaysia. While Indonesia’s exchange rate appreciates due to a rise in palm oil price regardless of the choice of predictive model, Malaysia’s exchange rate only appreciates after adjusting for oil price. However, both exchange rates do not seem to be resilient to the COVID-19 pandemic as they depreciate amidst dwindling palm oil price. Similar outcomes are observed for the out-of-sample predictability analysis. We highlight avenues for future research and the implications of our results for portfolio diversification strategies.

Common and idiosyncratic movements in Latin-American Exchange Rates

We propose a simple theoretical and empirical approach to differentiate between common and idiosyncratic exchange rate movements in 5 Latin-American economies: Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, and Peru. Our approach allows us to distinguish the effects on exchange rates of a regional exchange rate common factor and macroeconomic fundamentals differentials. The methodology and estimation strategy are suitable for both low and high frequency settings. We provide evidence that the regional common factor has a significant effect on the dynamics of the Latin-American exchange rates. In our estimations the relation between exchange rates and the common factor is contemporaneous and stable during the studied period.