Abstract
The paper examines the impact of exchange rate volatility on trade using an ARCH-in-mean model. The advantages of this statistical approach vis-a-vis earlier approaches is that it provides more efficient coefficient estimates and avoids the problem of spurious regressions.
Exchange rate volatility was found to have a negative impact on Canadian and Japanese exports to the United States and on Australian exports to the world. For Sweden, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands, the relationship was found to be positive. The magnitude of the impact of a 10% increase in exchange rate volatility on export volumes was found to range from a reduction of 7.4% (Canada) to an increase of 5% (Sweden).
The results indicate that exports invoiced in the importer's currency are affected negatively by exchange rate volatility, and exports invoiced in the exporter's currency are affected positively. A partial equilibrium, profit maximization model is derived to support these findings.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Abrams RK (1980) International trade flows under flexible exchange rates. Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City 65:3–10
Akhtar MA, Hilton RS (1984) Effects of exchange rate uncertainty on German and U.S. trade. Quarterly Review, Federal Reserve Bank of New York 9:7–16
Bailey MJ, Tavlas GS, Ulan M (1986) Exchange rate variability and trade performance: Evidence for the big seven industrial countries. Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv 122:466–77
Bailey MJ, Tavlas GS, Ulan M (1987) The impact of exchange rate volatility on export growth: Some theoretical considerations and empirical results. Journal of Policy Modeling, 9:225–43
Bailey MJ, Tavlas GS (1988) Trade and investment under floating rates: The U.S. Experience. The Cato Journal 8/2
Baldwin R, Krugman P (1989) Persistent trade effects of large exchange rate shocks. Quarterly Journal of Economics 104:635–54
Baron DP (1976) Fluctuating exchange rates and the pricing of exports. Economic Inquiry 14: 425–438
Bilson J (1983) The choice of an invoice currency in international transactions. In: Bhandari JS, Putnam BH (eds) Economic Interdependence and Flexible Exchange Rates, MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass., pp. 384–401
Caballero RJ, Corbo V (1989) The effect of real exchange rate uncertainty on exports: Empirical Evidence. The World Bank Economic Review 3/2
Carse S, Wood G (1979) Currency of invoicing and forward covering. In: Trade and Payments Adjustment Under Flexible Exchange Rates, Martin J and Smith A (Ed) 174–96 Macmillian, London
Coes D (1981) The crawling peg and exchange rate uncertainty. In: Exchange Rate Rules: The Theory, Performance and Prospects for the Crawling Peg Williamson J (Ed) 113–136, St. Martin Press, New York
Cumby RE, Obstfeld M (1981) Exchange rate expectations and nominal interest rate differentials: A test of the fisher hypothesis. Journal of Finance 36:697–703
Cushman DO (1983) The effects of real exchange rate risk on international trade. Journal of International Economics 15:45–63
Cushman DO (1986) Has exchange risk depressed international trade? The impact of third-country exchange risk. Journal of International Money and Finance 5:361–78
Cushman DO (1988) U.S. bilateral trade flows and exchange risk during the floating period. Journal of International Economics 24:317–30
de Grauwe P (1988) Exchange rate variability and the slowdown in growth of international trade. IMF Staff Papers 35:63–84
Diebold FX, Nason JA (1990) Nonparametric exchange rate prediction. Journal of International Economics 28:315–32
Dixit A (1989) Hysteresis, import penetration and exchange rate pass-through. Quarterly Journal of Economics 104:205–27
Dornbusch R (1987) Exchange rates and prices. American Economic Review 77:93–106
Engle RF (1982) Autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity with estimates of the variance of U.K. inflation. Econometrica 50:987–1007
Engle RF, Lilien DM, Robins RP (1987) Estimating time varying risk premia in the term structure: The ARCH-M model. Econometrica 55:391–407
Feenstra RC, Kendall JD (1991) Exchange rate volatility and international prices. National Bureau of Economic Research, Working Paper 3644, March
Frankel J, Meese R (1987) Are exchange rates excessively variable? National Bureau of Economic Research, Working Paper 2249
Frankel J, Meese R (1982) In search of the exchange risk premium: A six-currency test assuming mean-variance optimization. Journal of International Money and Finance 255–274
Froot KA, Klemperer PD (1989) Exchange rate pass-through when market share matters. American Economic Review 79:637–54
Giovannini A (1988) Exchange rates and traded goods prices. Journal of International Economics 24:45–68
Gotur P (1985) Effects of exchange rate volatility on trade. IMF Staff Papers 32:475–512
Grassman S (1973) A fundamental symmetry in international payments patterns. Journal of International Economics 3:105–116
Hakkio GS (1989) Exchange rates in the 1980s. Working Paper, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City
Hakkio GS, Rush M (1989) Market efficiency and cointegration: An application in the sterling and deutschemark exchange markets. Journal of International Money and Finance 8:75–88
Hooper P, Kohlhagen SW (1978) The effect of exchange rate uncertainty on the prices and volume of international trade. Journal of International Economics 8:483–511
International Monetary Fund (1984) Exchange rate volatility and world trade. Occasional Paper 29
Kenen PT, Rodrick D (1986) Measuring and analyzing the effects of short-term volatility in real exchange rates. The Review of Economics and Statistics 68:311–15
Koray F, Lastrapes WD (1989) Real exchange rate volatility and U.S. bilateral trade: A VAR Approach. The Review of Economics and Statistics, 71:708–12
Kroner KF, Lastrapes WD (1991) The impact of exchange rate volatility on international trade: Reduced form estimates using the GARCH-in-mean model. Manuscript, University of Arizona
Krugman P (1984) The international role of the dollar: Theory and prospects. In: Bilson J, Martson RS (eds) Exchange Rate Theory and Practice, Chicago, Chicago University Press 261–78
Kumar R, Dhawan R (1991) Exchange rate volatility and pakistan's exports to the developed world 1974–85. World Development 19/9:1225–1240
Mann CL (1989) The effects of exchange-rate trends and volatility on export prices: Industry examples from Japan, Germany, and the United States. Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv 125(3):588–618
Mark NC (1990) Real and nominal exchange rates in the long run: An empirical investigation. Journal of International Economics 28:115–36
McKinnon RI (1979) Money in international exchange, New York, Oxford University Press
Medhora R (1990) The effect of exchange rate variability on trade: The case of the west african monetary union's imports. World Development 18/2:313–24
Meese RA, Rogoff KS (1983) Empirical exchange rate models of the seventies: Are any fit to survive? Journal of International Economics 14:3–24
Meese RA, Rogoff KS, Rose AK (1990) Nonlinear, nonparametric, nonessential exchange rate estimation. American Economic Review 80:192–96
Page SAB (1981) The choices of invoicing currency in merchandise trade. National Institute Economic Review 85:60–72
Pritchett L (1991) Measuring real exchange rate instability in developing countries: Empirical evidence and implications. World Bank PRE Working Paper 791
Medhora R (1990) The effect of exchange rate volatility on trade: The case of the west african monetary union's imports. World Development 18/2:313–324
Tavlas GS (1991) On the international use of currencies: The case of the Deutche Mark. Essays in international finance, Princeton University 181
Tavlas GS, Yuzuri O (1992) The internationalization of currencies: An appraisal of the japanese yen. Occasional Paper 90, International Monetary Fund
Thursby JG, Thursby MC (1987) Bilateral trade flows, the linder hypothesis and exchange rate risk. The Review of Economics and Statistics 69:488–95
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Additional information
The authors wish to thank Ron Duncan, George Tavlas, Michael Ulan, Ken Kroner, Stan Wellisz, Vikram Nehru and George Alogoskoufis for their valuable comments and suggestions.