1,721,260 research outputs found

    Europe and the Euro

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    Will the Euro Eventually Surpass the Dollar as Leading International Reserve Currency?

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    Might the dollar eventually follow the precedent of the pound and cede its status as leading international reserve currency? Unlike ten years ago, there now exists a credible competitor: the euro. This paper econometrically estimates determinants of the shares of major currencies in the reserve holdings of the world%u2019s central banks. Significant factors include: size of the home country, inflation rate (or lagged depreciation trend), exchange rate variability, and size of the relevant home financial center (as measured by the turnover in its foreign exchange market). We have not found that net international debt position is an important determinant. Network externality theories would predict a tipping phenomenon. Indeed we find that the relationship between currency shares and their determinants is nonlinear (which we try to capture with a logistic function, or else with a dummy %u201Cleader%u201D variable for the largest country). But changes are felt only with a long lag (we estimate a weight on the preceding year%u2019s currency share around .9). The advent of the euro interrupts the continuity of the historical data set. So we estimate parameters on pre-1999 data, and then use them to forecast the EMU era. The equation correctly predicts a (small) narrowing in the gap between the dollar and euro over the period 1999-2004. Whether the euro might in the future rival or surpass the dollar as the world%u2019s leading international reserve currency appears to depend on two things: (1) do the United Kingdom and enough other EU members join euroland so that it becomes larger than the US economy, and (2) does US macroeconomic policy eventually undermine confidence in the value of the dollar, in the form of inflation and depreciation. What we learn about functional form and parameter values helps us forecast, contingent on these two developments, how quickly the euro might rise to challenge the dollar. Under two important scenarios the remaining EU members, including the UK, join EMU by 2020 or else the recent depreciation trend of the dollar persists into the future the euro may surpass the dollar as leading international reserve currency by 2022.

    A Pacific economic bloc: is there such an animal?

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    Pacific Area ; International trade

    On the Renminbi: The Choice between Adjustment under a Fixed Exchange Rate and Adjustment under a Flexible Rate

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    Fixed and flexible exchange rates each have advantages, and a country has the right to choose the regime suited to its circumstances. Nevertheless, several arguments support the view that the de facto dollar peg may now have outlived its usefulness for China. (1) China's economy is on the overheating side of internal balance, and appreciation would help easy inflationary pressure. (2) Although foreign exchange reserves are a useful shield against currency crises, by now China's current level is fully adequate, and US treasury securities do not pay a high return. (3) It becomes increasingly difficult to sterilize the inflow over time, exacerbating inflation. (4) Although external balance could be achieved by expenditure reduction, e.g., by raising interest rates, the existence of two policy goals (external balance and internal balance) in general requires the use of two independent policy instruments (e.g., the real exchange rate and the interest rate). (5) A large economy like China can achieve adjustment in the real exchange rate via flexibility in the nominal exchange rate more easily than via price flexibility. (6) The experience of other emerging markets points toward exiting from a peg when times are good and the currency is strong, rather than waiting until times are bad and the currency is under attack. (7) From a longer-run perspective, prices of goods and services in China are low -- not just low relative to the United States (.23), but also low by the standards of a Balassa-Samuelson relationship estimated across countries (which predicts .36). In this specific sense, the yuan was undervalued by approximately 35% in 2000, and is by at least as much today. The paper finds that, typically across countries, such gaps are corrected halfway, on average, over the subsequent decade. These seven arguments for increased exchange rate flexibility need not imply a free float. China is a good counter-example to the popular "corners hypothesis" prohibition on intermediate exchange rate regimes.

    Puzzles in the Chinese stock market

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    Many companies on China’s stock markets have separate, restricted classes of shares for domestic residents and foreigners. These shares are identical other than who can own them, but foreigners pay only about one-quarter the price paid by domestic residents. We argue that the generally higher level (and volatility) of domestic share prices is consistent with the simplest asset pricing model, assuming plausible differences-about 4 percentage-points-in expected rates of return by foreign and domestic investors. We attribute low Chinese expected returns to the limited alternative investments available in China. We then estimate how various company characteristics affect the relative price paid by foreigners in a panel of companies. We find, for example, that foreigners pay a lower relative price for companies with a higher proportion owned by the state--reflecting, surprisingly, a higher absolute price paid by both foreigners and domestic residents.Stock market ; China

    Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis

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    The present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed

    Emissions Reduction by the Numbers

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    Emissions Reduction by the Numbers / Jeffrey Frankel, Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, Project Syndicate, 14/11/2014 http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/china-us-carbon-emissions-formula-by-jeffrey-frankel-2014-11 Discussions in Beijing between US President Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping – the leaders of the world’s two largest carbon-emitting countries – produced an unexpected, groundbreaking bilateral agreement on greenhouse-gas emissions. Under the..

    Variations on the Author

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    “Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
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