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Liberty Street Economics
60 posts on "Exchange Rates"January 09, 2019
The Perplexing Co-Movement of the Dollar and Oil Prices
Oil prices and the exchange rate of the U.S. dollar against the euro have often moved together over the past decade or so, but it is not at all clear why they should. The standard interpretation of oil price movements as a response to global oil supply and demand shifts makes it unlikely that the correlation stems from the dollar’s effect on oil prices. In addition, the notorious difficulty in predicting currency moves makes it hard to believe that oil prices dictate the dollar’s value. Improbability aside, however, in this blog post we document the tendency for the value of the dollar to rise relative to European currencies when oil prices fall, and we consider a possible explanation for the correlation.
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Posted by Blog Author at 7:00 AM in Exchange Rates, International Economics | Permalink | Comments (6)November 07, 2016
What’s Driving the Recent Slump in U.S. Imports?
The growth in U.S. imports of goods has been stubbornly low since the second quarter of 2015, with an average annual growth rate of 0.7 percent. Growth has been even weaker for non-oil imports, which have increased at an average annual rate of only 0.1 percent. This is in sharp contrast to the pattern in the five quarters preceding the second quarter of 2015, when real non-oil imports were growing at an annualized rate of 8 percent per quarter. The timing of the weakness in import growth is particularly puzzling in light of the strong U.S. dollar, which appreciated 12 percent in 2015, lowering the price of imported goods relative to domestically produced goods. The trajectory for imports can affect the variety of goods consumed in the United States and could, if it is evolving independently, have implications for overall economic growth. To understand the consequences of lower import growth, it is important to understand what is behind this recent trend. In this blog post, we explore what has been driving the recent slump in U.S. imports of non-oil goods.
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Posted by Blog Author at 7:00 AM in Exchange Rates, International Economics | Permalink | Comments (0)June 22, 2016
The Rapidly Changing Nature of Japan’s Public Debt
Japan’s general government debt-to-GDP ratio is the highest of advanced economies, due in part to increased spending on social services for an aging population and a level of nominal GDP that has not increased for two decades. The interest rate payments from taxpayers on this debt are moderated by income earned on government assets and by low interest rates. One might think that the Bank of Japan’s purchases of government bonds would further ease the burden on taxpayers, with interest payments to the Bank of Japan on its bond holdings rebated back to the government. Merging the balance sheets of the government and the Bank, however, shows that the asset purchase program alters the composition of public debt, with reserves in the banking system replacing government bonds, but not the amount of the debt taxpayers must pay interest on.
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Posted by Blog Author at 7:00 AM in Bank Capital, Exchange Rates, Fiscal Policy, Monetary Policy | Permalink | Comments (6)June 01, 2016
Revisiting the Case for International Policy Coordination
Sushant Acharya, Ozge Akinci, Julien Bengui, and Bianca De Paoli
Prompted by the U.S. financial crisis and subsequent global recession, policymakers in advanced economies slashed interest rates dramatically, hitting the zero lower bound (ZLB), and then implemented unconventional policies such as large-scale asset purchases. In emerging economies, however, the policy response was more subdued since they were less affected by the financial crisis. As a result, capital flows from advanced to emerging economies increased markedly in response to widening interest rate differentials. Some emerging economies reacted by adopting measures to slow down capital inflows, acting under the presumption that these flows were harmful. This type of policy response has reignited the debate over how to moderate international spillovers.
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Posted by Blog Author at 7:00 AM in Exchange Rates, Exports, Financial Markets, International Economics, Monetary Policy | Permalink | Comments (0)May 09, 2016
The Turnaround in Private and Public Financial Outflows from China
China lends to the rest of the world because it saves much more than it needs to fund its high level of physical investment spending. For years, the public sector accounted for this lending through the Chinese central bank’s purchase of foreign assets, but this changed in 2015. The country still had substantial net financial outflows, but unlike in previous years, more private money was pouring out of China than was flowing in. This shift in private sector behavior forced the central bank to sell foreign assets so that the sum of net private and public outflows would equal the saving surplus at prevailing exchange rates. Explanations for this turnaround by private investors include lower returns on domestic investment spending and a less optimistic outlook for China’s currency.
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Posted by Blog Author at 7:00 AM in Balance of Payments, Central Bank, Current Account, Exchange Rates, Exports, Financial Markets, International Economics | Permalink | Comments (0)March 23, 2016
Is Bitcoin Really Frictionless?
Bitcoin is the most popular virtual currency yet developed. Proponents assert that bitcoin can remove frictions involved in payment and settlement systems by eliminating the need for the financial intermediaries that exist in traditional currencies. In this blog post, we show that while bitcoin transfers themselves are relatively frictionless for the user, there are significant frictions when bitcoins trade in exchange markets resulting in meaningful and persistent price differences across bitcoin exchanges. These exchange-related frictions reduce the incentive of market participants to use bitcoin as a payments alternative.
Posted by Blog Author at 7:00 AM in Cryptocurrencies, Exchange Rates, Financial Markets | Permalink | Comments (1)February 04, 2016
How Do Central Bank Balance Sheets Change in Times of Crisis?
The 2007-09 financial crisis, and the monetary policy response to it, have greatly increased the size of central bank balance sheets around the world. These changes were not always well understood and some were controversial. We discuss these crisis-induced changes, following yesterday’s post on the composition of central bank balance sheets in normal times, and explain the policy intentions behind some of them.
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Posted by Blog Author at 7:00 AM in Central Bank, Exchange Rates, Monetary Policy | Permalink | Comments (0)February 03, 2016
What Is the Composition of Central Bank Balance Sheets in Normal Times?
There has been unusually high activity on central banks’ balance sheets in recent years. This activity, which has expanded beyond the core operations and collateral of the central bank, has been called “unconventional,” “nonstandard,” “nontraditional,” and “active.” But what constitutes a normal central bank balance sheet? How does central bank asset and liability composition vary across countries and how did the crisis change this composition? In this post, we focus on the main characteristics of central bank balance sheets before the crisis. In our next piece, we describe how this composition has changed in response to the crisis.
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Posted by Blog Author at 7:00 AM in Central Bank, Exchange Rates, Monetary Policy | Permalink | Comments (2)February 02, 2016
Counterparties and Collateral Requirements for Implementing Monetary Policy
What types of counterparties can borrow from or lend to a central bank, and what kind of collateral must they possess in order to receive a loan? These are two key aspects of a central bank’s monetary policy implementation framework. Since at least the nineteenth century, it has been understood that an important role of central banks is to lend to solvent but illiquid institutions, particularly during a crisis, as this provides liquidity insurance to the financial system. They also provide liquidity to markets during normal times as a means to implement monetary policy. Central banks that rely on scarcity of reserves need to adjust the supply of liquidity in the market, as described in our previous post. In this post, we focus on liquidity provision related to the conduct of monetary policy.
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Posted by Blog Author at 7:00 AM in Euro Area, Exchange Rates, Monetary Policy | Permalink | Comments (0)February 01, 2016
Standard Elements of a Monetary Policy Implementation Framework
In the minutes of the July 2015 Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting, the chair indicated that Federal Reserve staff would undertake an extended effort to evaluate potential long-run monetary policy implementation frameworks. But what is a central bank’s monetary policy implementation framework? In a series of four posts, we provide an overview of the key elements that typically constitute such a framework.
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About the BlogLiberty Street Economics features insight and analysis from New York Fed economists working at the intersection of research and policy. Launched in 2011, the blog takes its name from the Bank’s headquarters at 33 Liberty Street in Manhattan’s Financial District.
The editors are Michael Fleming, Andrew Haughwout, Thomas Klitgaard, and Asani Sarkar, all economists in the Bank’s Research Group.
The views expressed are those of the authors, and do not necessarily reflect the position of the New York Fed or the Federal Reserve System.
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