The Politics of Exchange Rates in Developing Countries: Political Cycles and Domestic Institutions

265 Pages·2006·14.838 MB·English

by  Dr. Ralph Setzer (auth.)

The Politics of Exchange Rates
in Developing Countries
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Ralph Setzer
The PoHtics of
Exchange Rates
in Developing
Countries
Political Cycles and Domestic Institutions
With 11 Figures and 39 Tables
Physica-Verlag
A Springer Company
Series Editors
Werner A. Muller
Martina Bihn
Author
Dr. Ralph Setzer
Deutsche Bundesbank
Wilhelm-Epstein-Str. 14
60431 Frai^furt, Germany
E-mail: [email protected]
Printed with the financial support of the Stiftimg Landesbank Baden-Wiirttemberg (LBBW), Germany
ISSN 1431-1933
ISBN 10 3-7908-1715-5 Physica-Verlag Heidelberg New York
ISBN 13 978-3-7908-1715-7 Physica-Verlag Heidelberg New York
Diss., Univ. Hohenheim, DlOO
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Acknowledgements
This book presents the results of my doctoral study at the University of
Hohenheim. Many people helped me to develop this thesis with their sug
gestions and support. At the top of this list is certainly my advisor, Profes
sor Dr. Ansgar Belke. I am very appreciative of his advice and sugges
tions, which were essential to the development of this study. Moreover, I
thank him for providing me with many excellent opportunities for connect
ing to the world of research. I would also like to thank Professor Dr.
Gerhard Wagenhals, who acted as my secondary advisor. His efforts in an
swering my technical questions are greatly appreciated. I also thank Pro
fessor Dr. Rolf Caesar for serving on my PhD committee.
The Institute of Economics at the University of Hohenheim provided the
ideal setting for this project. I want to thank my friends and colleagues Kai
Geisslreither, Frank Baumgartner, Yuhua Cui and Rahel Aichele not only
for their many helpful comments on earlier drafts of this thesis, but also for
their friendship and for the many pleasant and relaxing moments we spent
together. I further benefited from useful discussions with Dr. Hans Pitlik
and Dr. Jorg Weltin and from the valuable statistical insights of Sebastian
Moll.
I owe special thanks to Felix Hammermann and Dr. Rainer Schweickert
from the Kiel Institute for World Economics and to Thomas Amend
(HSBC Trinkaus & Burkhardt) for their critical reading of parts of the
manuscript. Many thanks are also expressed to Professor Dr. Jakob de
Haan (University of Groningen) and Professor Dr. Carmen M. Reinhart
(University of Maryland), who provided me with valuable data, and to Al
ison McNee Perez, whose review of the manuscript has been invaluable.
Part of this book has been presented at conferences and workshops in
Amsterdam, Gdansk, Gottingen, Hohenheim, Portoroz, Rethymnon, and
Zurich. I wish to thank the participants, particularly Professor Dr. Adi
Schnytzer (Bar-Illan University), for their suggestions and fruitful discus
sions. I thank the Universitatsbund Hohenheim e. V. for financing some of
the travel costs and the foundation of the Landesbank Baden-Wiirttemberg
for the generous financial support to print this book.
On a more personal level, I wish to thank my brother and my long time
friends Markus, Kai, Alexandre, Andreas for their friendship on many oc-
VI Acknowledgements
casions. I also owe deep thanks to Barbara for the years she stood by my
side. Finally, and most importantly, I am indebted to my parents. Knowing
that I could always rely on their support was vital to the completion of this
project.
February 2006 Ralph Setzer
Table of contents
Acknowledgements V
List of abbreviations XI
1 General introduction 1
1.1 The context 1
1.2 The aim of the thesis 2
1.3 The structure of the thesis 5
2 The normative and the positive view on exchange rate policy 13
2.1 Introduction to chapter 2 13
2.2 Economic treatment of exchange rate regime choice 15
2.2.1 The optimum currency area hypothesis 15
2.2.2 The Mundell-Fleming framework 16
2.2.3 Credibility, reputation, and time consistency 16
2.2.4 The bipolar view 18
2.3 The political and institutional hypothesis 19
3 Fear of floating and fear of pegging: How important is politics?.... 23
3.1 Litroduction to chapter 3 23
3.2 Fear of devaluing 24
3.2.1 Economic effects of devaluations 25
3.2.2 Political costs of devaluations 26
3.3 The economic rationale for exchange rate stabilization 28
3.4 Political reasons for reneging on exchange rate policy 31
3.4.1 The study by Alesina and Wagner (2003) 31
3.4.2 Democracy and the propensity to renege 32
3.4.3 Political instability and the propensity to renege 34
3.5 Presentation of the dataset 37
3.5.1 Exchange rate regime classifications 37
3.5.2 Dependent variable 39
3.5.3 Explanatory variables 41
3.6 Estimation method and regression results 46
3.6.1 Methodological issues on binary response models 46
VIII Table of contents
3.6.2 Estimation results 47
3.6.3 Regression diagnostics and robustness checks 54
3.7 Discussion of findings 58
3.A Appendix to chapter 3 61
4 Political uncertainty and speculative attacks 63
4.1 Introduction to chapter 4 63
4.2 A political-economic perspective on currency crises 64
4.3 To devalue or to defend? 69
4.4 Previous research on the political economy of exchange rates 72
4.4.1 Literature on the political economy of exchange rate regime
choice 73
4.4.2 Literature on the political economy of speculative attacks 77
5 Developing a theory of currency peg duration 89
5.1 Introduction to chapter 5 89
5.2 Elections and changes of policymakers 89
5.2.1 The political business cycle theory 90
5.2.2 Political opportunism and exchange rate policymaking 92
5.2.3 The partisan theory 95
5.2.4 Partisan interests and exchange rate policymaking 96
5.3 Institutions and processes 99
5.3.1 Categories of theories 99
5.3.2 Veto players 101
5.3.3 Central bank independence 105
5.3.4 Democratic and authoritarian regimes 108
5.3.5 Political instability 110
5.4 Private groups and interests 113
5.4.1 Characteristic features of interest group lobbying 113
5.4.2 Limitations of interest group lobbying 114
5.4.3 Specifying interest groups' exchange rate preferences 116
5.4.4 Implications for the sustainability of currency pegs 118
5.5 Overview of hypotheses 120
6 The determinants of fixed exchange rate regime duration:
A survival analysis 123
6.1 Introduction to chapter 6 123
6.2 The variables definition. 125
6.2.1 Measuring exchange rate regime longevity 125
6.2.2 Measuring political, institutional, and interest group
characteristics 127
6.2.3 Macroeconomic, structural, and financial variables 130
Table of contents IX
6.3 Modeling exchange rate regime duration 134
6.3.1 The concept of survival analysis 134
6.3.2 Mathematical components of survival analysis 136
6.3.3 Estimating survivor and hazard functions 138
6.3.4 The Cox model 139
6.4 Estimation results 141
6.4.1 Nonparametric analysis with the Kaplan-Meier estimator.... 141
6.4.2 Descriptive statistics on fixed exchange rate regime periods 146
6.4.3 Results of the Cox estimates 147
6.5 Testing for misspecification 156
6.5.1 Motivation for employing an alternative specification 156
6.5.2 Results for specification tests 158
6.6 Hypotheses verification 160
6.7 The politics of speculative attacks 163
6.7.1 Identifying speculative attacks 163
6.7.2 Results of the speculative attack specification 168
6.7.3 Findings for an alternative speculative attack indicator 174
6.8 Summary of results 177
6.A Appendix to chapter 6 178
7 Political cycles and the real exchange rate 187
7.1 Introduction to chapter 7 187
7.2 Elections and currency markets 188
7.2.1 Politics and currency markets 188
7.2.2 Theoretical models on political exchange rate cycles 191
7.2.3 The empirical literature on political exchange rate cycles.... 195
7.3 The data 198
7.3.1 Rationalizing the choice of the dependent variable 199
7.3.2 Graphical data analysis 200
7.3.3 Explanatory variables 203
7.3.4 The logic of lagged dependent variables 205
7.4 Methodological issues in TSCS analysis 206
7.4.1 Testing for stationarity 206
7.4.2 Basic model selection 211
7.4.3 Error specification 216
7.5 Empirical results 218
7.6 Robustness checks 221
7.6.1 Exchange rate regime 221
7.6.2 Degree of central bank independence 223
7.6.3 US elections 225
7.6.4 Competitiveness of elections 226