Capital flows, economic growth and the real effective exchange rate: Evidence from China

This paper examines the Granger causal relationship between capital flows and economic growth in China over the period 1998Q1–2019Q2,allowing for real effective exchange rate(REER)effects.As parameter instability tests indicate structural changes,we use bootstrap rolling window causality tests,which suggest that the causal nexus between capital flows and GDP growth is time-varying.We find that the causal links between foreign direct investments(FDIs)and GDP growth are hardly affected by the REER,whereas the REER plays a more important role in affecting the causal connections between portfolio investments and other investments and GDP growth.Our results suggest that cumulative portfolio inflows and cumulative other investment inflows harm GDP growth,whereas cumulative portfolio outflows and cumula-tive other investment outflows positively affect GDP growth.

Real Effective Exchange Rate and Regional Economic Growth in China： Evidence from Provincial Data

Using data for the period 2000-2011, we construct province-level real effective exchange rate （REER） indices for China and test the effect of REER depreciation on regional economic growth in a generalized method of moments regression framework. Our results show that REER depreciation, in general, promotes regional economic growth, through increasing net exports and lowering FDI costs. After dividing the full sample into coastal and inland subsamples, we find that REER depreciation influences economic growth in inland areas but not in coastal areas. This is due to the fact that the inland areas have more surplus labor or other resources to expand their production capacity when REER depreciation leads to increased worm demand. Furthermore, compared to inland areas, processing-and-assembly trade comprises a larger share of trade in the coastal areas, where traders import more raw materials and intermediate goods to process and assemble goods. When the exchange rate depreciates, the costs of imported materials and immediate goods increase. In this case, the benefits from REER depreciation in coastal areas are offset to some extent and are thus lower than in inland areas.

Industry-specific Real Effective Exchange Rate for China:2000-2009

This paper measures the industry-specific real effective exchange rate （REER） for China by matching domestic and foreign industry-level price and trade data series. We find that after 2005 the REER appreciates more in the ＂chemical, plastics, rubber and fuels industry＂ and the ＂＇machinery and equipment industry,＂ but remains roughly constant or even depreciates in other industries. The nominal exchange rate generally accounts for over 50 percent of the aggregate real effective exchange rate JTuetuations, but this conclusion does not apply to three of nine industries. We apply the industry-specific REER to re-examine the relationship between the exchange rate and trade, and find that the industry-specific REER index performs better than the traditional aggregate REER index. We recommend that the Chinese Government officially adopt industry-specific exchange rates instead of using the aggregate effective exchange rates to evaluate the competitiveness of Chinese industries in the international market.

China's Import–exchange Rate Linkage:Evidence from the China-bound Exports of Japan and Korea

This paper examines how the China-bound exports of Japan and Korea are related to exchange rates, motivated by the fact that processing trade makes up a large proportion of China＇s trade, and that Japan and Korea are the leading source countries for processing imports. Because processing imports are inputs for exports, the link between such imports and China＇s exchange rates are ambiguous. We estimate export functions that include China＇s RMB real effective exchauge rates （REER） along with bilateral real exchange rates （B RER） using Johausen ＇s cointegration method aud find that the RMB REER significantly affects Japanese and Korean exports to China, even more so than BRER in most cases examined. These two exchange rates appear in the export equations with opposite signs. Subsequently, we use the estimated model to illustrate the importance of accounting for a concurrent change in B RER when analyzing the effects of a hypothetical RMB revaluation on China＇s trade balances despite the apparently weak imports-B RER linkage.

Exchange Rate Change, Factor Market Distortion and Company Performance

Based on the matched data of China’s tax survey and customs from 2007 to 2011,this paper studies the differential impact of exchange rate changes on the performance of companies by region from the perspective of factor market distortion.The results show that for import companies,the RMB appreciation significantly contributes to improving their performance and this phenomenon is more pronounced in areas with high factor market distortions.Channel tests show that the proportion of intermediate goods imported by final producers increases with regional factor market distortions.Therefore,the appreciation of the national currency is more favorable for areas with high factor market distortions(companies with high proportion of imported intermediate goods).In addition,the appreciation of the national currency will promote the production of China’s upstream intermediate goods producers by expanding the output of downstream enterprises.This paper complements previous studies on the differential impact of RMB exchange rate changes on regional economic growth from a micro perspective.