Exchange Rate Dynamics, Energy Consumption, and Sustainable Environment in Pakistan: New Evidence From Nonlinear ARDL Cointegration

Pakistan's local currency has been devalued during different exchange regimes, which may substantially affect energy consumption and CO2 emissions. Therefore, this study investigates the effects of exchange rate depreciation on Pakistan's CO2 emissions and energy consumption from 1990–2018. We apply the nonlinear autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) cointegration approach for the empirical analysis and found that exchange rate depreciation increases CO2 emissions and energy consumption in both the short and long runs. These results suggest that currency devaluation has an expansionary effect which enhances economic growth at the cost of high energy consumption and CO2 emissions. Therefore, the government needs regulations along with an exchange rate policy to control CO2 emissions. Moreover, the government should search for alternate energy resources such as renewable energy resources that meet the country's energy needs and mitigate CO2 emissions.

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.

Econometric Assessment of the Impact of Exchange Rate Depreciation on Inflation in Nigeria (1981-2017)

The present reality of the Nigerian economy is the fact that inflation has remained unabated in spite of all exchange rate measures that have been adopted by the monetary authority. This calls for investigation into the extent to which exchange rate impact on inflation in Nigeria. The research paper examined the impact of exchange rate depreciation on inflation in Nigeria for the period 1981–2017, using Auto Regressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) Bounds Test Cointegration Procedure. The research shows that inflation rate in Nigeria is highly susceptible to lagged inflation rate, exchange rate, lagged exchange rate, lagged broad money, and lagged gross domestic product at 5% level of significance. A long run relationship was also found to exist between inflation rate, gross domestic product and general government expenditure, indicating that the model has a self-adjusting mechanism for correcting any deviation of the variables from equilibrium. Therefore, this study concludes that exchange rate is an important tool to manage inflation in the country; thus, this paper recommends that policies that have direct influence on inflation as well as exchange rate policies that would checkmate inflation movement in the country, should be used by the Central Bank of Nigeria. Also, monetary growth and import management policies should be put in place to encourage domestic production of export commodities, which are currently short-supplied. In addition, policy makers should not rely on this instrument totally to control inflation, but should use it as a complement to other macro-economic policies.

THE EFFECT OF NOMINAL EXCHANGE RATE DEPRECIATION ON TRADE IN ELEVEN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES

This study examined the effect of nominal exchange rate depreciation on the trade balance in 11 Asian-African countries between 1980 and 2019, and within the context of an exogenously determined single structural break. The countries had persistently experienced both nominal exchange rate depreciation and upward trends in trade in goods. Using the Chow test to frame the discussion, these countries were found to be facing structural changes associated with external factors such as the commodity price crisis in South Asia and the global financial crisis. The time-series autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) approach with bounds test for cointegration and error-correction mechanism (ECM) was also applied for the analysis. The results of the study showed a long-term cointegration between the trade in goods and other variables included. Specifically, the nominal exchange rate depreciation positively affected the trade in goods in both the long-run and short-run in most of the Asian-African countries studied. There was a positive relationship between trade and foreign direct investment in the short-run, but this relationship mostly became insignificant in the long-run. Gross domestic product had a significant impact on trade performance in goods in both the long-run and short-run in all countries studied.

Exchange rates and immigration policy

What explains cross-national and temporal variations in migrant rights? This article argues that policymakers implement more exclusionary or inclusive policies toward migrants in response to exchange-rate fluctuations. Since exchange rates affect the real value of remittances, exchange-rate depreciation of the host state’s currency makes migration less valuable for existing and potential migrants, while exchange-rate appreciation increases the degree of migrant pressure on the host state by doing the opposite. This well-documented relationship between exchange rate valuation and migration movements affects how host country governments craft immigration policy. Under exchange-rate depreciation, policymakers will implement more inclusive policies to deter the “exit” of migrants and maintain a stable supply of labor. Under exchange-rate appreciation, increased migration pressures heighten public anxiety over immigration in the host country, in turn causing policymakers to restrict further immigration by implementing more exclusionary policies. Consistent with the argument, the empirical results show that the purchasing-power-parity (PPP) currency values of migrants’ home countries are positively correlated with more pro-migrant policies in host countries.

Asymmetric Dynamics of Industrial Response to Exchange Rate Variation in Nigeria

Exchange rate policies are germane to industrial subsector development and the country at large. In this regard; the study examines the asymmetric pass through of official exchange rate policy on Nigerian industrial Subsector from 1970Q1 to 2019Q4. Non-linear ARDL method of estimation was adopted to ascertain the long run and short run asymmetric relation between official exchange rate and industrial output subsector. The results confirmed the presence of both long run and short run asymmetries between manufacturing output and official exchange rate. In the long run, increase in official exchange rate (appreciation) portends a corresponding increase in manufacturing output, while decrease in official exchange rate (depreciation) is negatively related to manufacturing output. On the other hand, the short run dynamics revealed that positive changes in official exchange rate choked off industrial output though statistically insignificance while negative change (depreciation) crowded in industrial output in Nigeria in the period under review against a priori expectation. The result also indicated that the crowding out impact of official exchange rate depreciation is more enduring (long lasting) compared to the positive variations. The presence of asymmetry is novel and instructive for policy pundits, executors, theorists, monetary authorities and allied agents to take decisive steps in order to stem the debilitating effects of exchange rate misalignment to encourage domestic investors, attract foreign investors and thus, stimulate the industrial subsector.

Determinants of Industrial Development

Global evidence suggests that, for many countries, manufacturing typically has an inverted U-shaped relationship with development. But unlike the historical experience of most developed countries, for most developing countries the turning point of this relationship is occurring sooner in the development process, and at substantially lower levels of income. This is termed ‘premature deindustrialization’. The consequences of this may be particularly important if such countries can no longer rely on manufacturing-led development. Why are some countries more industrialized, or more deindustrialized, than other comparable countries? To explore these issues, this chapter uses panel-data econometric techniques to analyse the determinants of the share of manufacturing in GDP, across countries and across time. Domestic determinants include investment, government consumption, population size, human capital, democracy, and natural resource endowments. External determinants include trade openness, capital account liberalization, and exchange rate depreciation.