Asset Market And Balance Of Payments Characteristics

In this paper we use an exchange rate model that combines asset market characteristics with balance of payments interactions to examine the nominal effective exchange rates of the German mark, Japanese yen, and U.S. dollar for the recent experience with floating exchange rates. Our approach may be interpreted as one which attempts to flesh out the missing links that arise in conditioning an exchange rate solely on relative prices, as occurs in a standard PPP analysis. In contrast to much other empirical exchange rate modeling, our approach explicitly involves the use of a current account sustainability term. Amongst the findings reported in this paper are: significant, and sensible, long-run relationships for all of the currencies studied; appealing short-run dynamics for two of the currencies; and a finding that the Japanese effective exchange rate closely tracks the long-run exchange rate defined in this paper.

The Balance of Payments Textbook, like the Balance of Payments Compilation Guide, is a companion document to the fifth edition of the Balance of Payments Manual. The Textbook provides illustrative examples and applications of concepts, definitions, classifications, and conventions contained in the Manual and affords compilers with opportunities for enhancing their understanding of the relevant parts of the Manual. The Textbook is one of the main reference materials for training courses in balance of payments methodology.

A companion document to the fifth edition of the Balance of Payments Manual, the Balance of Payments Compilation Guide shows how the conceptual framework described in the Manual may be implemented in practice. The primary purpose of the Guide is to provide practical guidance for using sources and methods to compile statistics on the balance of payments and the international investment position. the Guide is designed to assist balance of payments compilers and statisticians in understanding the relative strengths and weaknesses of various approaches. The material reflects the emergence of new data sources and adaptations in the application of statistical methodologies to changing circumstances. Discussed in the Guide are all of the tasks that a BOP compiler normally performs. Appendices contain a set of model BOP questionnaires and a set of model BOP publication tables. Relationships between the balance of payments statistics and relevant aspects of national accounts are covered as well.

Understanding macroeconomic developments and policies in the twenty-first century is daunting: policy-makers face the combined challenges of supporting economic activity and employment, keeping inflation low and risks of financial crises at bay, and navigating the ever-tighter linkages of globalization. Many professionals face demands to evaluate the implications of developments and policies for their business, financial, or public policy decisions. Macroeconomics for Professionals provides a concise, rigorous, yet intuitive framework for assessing a country's macroeconomic outlook and policies. Drawing on years of experience at the International Monetary Fund, Leslie Lipschitz and Susan Schadler have created an operating manual for professional applied economists and all those required to evaluate economic analysis.

This paper explains contribution of the September 1949 devaluations to the solution of Europe’s dollar problem. After the devaluations, the dollar value of exports to the United States from the devaluing countries in Europe recovered from the low levels of the second and third quarters of 1949, but this recovery, which restored exports in the first half of 1950 approximately to the 1948 level should be attributed in large part to the recovery in the US economy rather than to the devaluations. Between the first half of 1949 and the first half of 1950, Europe's dollar imports declined by one-third. Most of this decline occurred, however, between the second and third quarter of 1949, that is, before the devaluations. With imports generally controlled, the effect of the devaluations appeared much more in the reduction of pressure on the control authorities, the substitution of the price mechanism for at least part of the controls as barriers to imports, and the consequent more rational allocation of the relatively scarce dollars among different uses and different users.

In the late 1990s, international statistical experts confirmed that financial derivatives should be treated as financial assets and that transactions in financial derivatives should be reported as separate transactions rather than as integral parts of the values of underlying transactions or of financial assets to which some derivatives are linked as hedges. Therefore, to parallel revisions made to the System of National Accounts (1993), an addendum and amendments to the fifth edition (1993) of the Balance of Payments Manual (BPM5) were prepared and published, in early 2000, as a supplement entitled Financial Derivatives. This supplement comprises two parts. Part I contains a new chapter in which the features of financial derivatives and treatments appropriate for specific derivatives were described. Part II consists of modifications to those portions of the BPM5 that pertain to financial derivatives. The revisions are shown by means of shading and strikeout. Financial Derivatives is an essential component of the BPM5.

The fifth edition of Balance of Payments Manual, issued in 1993, presents revised and updated standards for concepts, definitions, classifications, and conventions for compilation of balance of payments and international investment position statistics that reflect the widespread changes that have taken place in international transactions since the fouth edition was published in 1977. As the international standard, the Manual serves as a guide for IMF member countries that regularly report balance of payments data to the IMF. The Manual contains significantly expanded and restructured coverage of financial flows and stocks and international transactions in services. Harmonization with the System of National Accounts and other IMF statistical systems is also greatly increased. See also companion volumes, the Balance of Payments Compilation Guide and the Balance of Payments Textbook.

This Guide provides clear, up-to-date guidance on the concepts, definitions, and classifications of the gross external debt of the public and private sectors, and on the sources, compilation techniques, and analytical uses of these data. The Guide supersedes the previous international guidance on external debt statistics available in External Debt: Definition, Statistical Coverage, and Methodology (known as the Gray Book), 1988. The Guides conceptual framework derives from the System of National Accounts 1993 and the fifth edition of the IMFs Balance of Payments Manual(1993). Preparation of the Guide was undertaken by an Inter-Agency Task Force on Finance Statistics, chaired by the IMF and involving representatives from the BIS, the Commonwealth Secretariat, the European Central Bank, Eurostat, the OECD, the Paris Club Secretariat, UNCTAD, and the World Bank.