Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/153585 
Year of Publication: 
2010
Series/Report no.: 
ECB Working Paper No. 1151
Publisher: 
European Central Bank (ECB), Frankfurt a. M.
Abstract: 
This paper reviews three different concepts of equilibrium exchange rates that are widely used in policy analysis and constitute the backbone of the IMF CGER assessment: the Macroeconomic Balance, the External Sustainability and the reduced form approaches. We raise a number of econometric issues that were previously neglected, proposing some methodological advances to address them. The first issue relates to the presence of model uncertainty in deriving benchmarks for the current account, introducing Bayesian averaging techniques as a solution. The second issue reveals that, if one considers all the sets of plausible identification schemes, the uncertainty surrounding export and import exchange rate elasticities is large even at longer horizons. The third issue discusses the uncertainty associated to the estimation of a reduced form relationship for the real exchange rate, concluding that inference can be improved by panel estimation. The fourth and final issue addresses the presence of strong and weak cross section dependence in panel estimation, suggesting which panel estimators one could use in this case. Overall, the analysis puts forward a number of innovative solutions in dealing with the large uncertainties surrounding equilibrium exchange rate estimates.
Subjects: 
current account
Equilibrium exchange rates
global imbalances
IMF CGER methodologies
trade elasticities
JEL: 
F31
F32
F41
Document Type: 
Working Paper

Files in This Item:
File
Size





Items in EconStor are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.