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Section 3 explains monetary policy in New Zealand. Section 4 explains our simple model. Section 5 discusses the estimation results. Section 6 provides a robustness check for our model. Section 7 includes a brief introduction to viability theory and a viability analysis. Section 8 proposes recommendations to the Reserve Bank and other interested government agencies. Section 9 concludes this paper. 2 Data and the New Zealand economy This paper focuses on four key macroeconomic variables: nominal interest rate, inflation, output gap, and real exchange rate. This section will discuss these variables with an emphasis on the real exchange rate and exports which are of particular interest in this study. From 1991 to 2015, the New Zealand dollar has appreciated in real terms (as shown in Figure 1a). The phrase “the exchange rate is overvalued” and the notion that this may negatively affect New Zealand’s export competitiveness have been recently and very frequently mentioned by the Reserve Bank officials and local newspapers. The current strength of the New Zealand dollar can be explained by factors such as the country’s current high terms of trade and relatively strong economic performance (McDermott, 2013). As commented in a Reserve Bank press release, an option for the Reserve Bank is to change the focus of monetary policy to target the exchange rate (McDermott, 2013). Figure 1b shows the correlation between real exchange rate at time t − 1 and the export value at time t in New Zealand dollar term for the period 1991-2015. The scattered plot and the OLS regression line shows positive correlation between export value and the real value of the NZ dollar. Interestingly, this finding shows that a real depreciation is correlated with lower export value even though in theory New Zealand products should become more appealing to foreign consumers as its currency depreciates. It can be argued that New Zealand major trading 7
(a) Real Trade-Weighted Index from RBNZ (red), BIS (blue), World Bank (purple) (b) Correlation between Export Value and Real Exchange Rate Figure 1: Real Exchange Rate and New Zealand Exports partners such as Australia and China have relatively inelastic demand for New Zealand goods. Chinese population growth and particularly rapid growth in the middle-income class may have caused demand for New Zealand food products to grow which then puts upward pressure on the New Zealand dollar. The development in foreign exchange hedging instruments could have also mitigated the real increase in cost for foreign customers buying New Zealand products. Brookes, Hargreaves, Lucas, and White (2000) shows that short-term exposures to currency fluctuations can be hedged with negligible costs. Goldberg and Tille (2008) found that exporters with large percentage of homogenous export goods such as commodity products are likely to invoice their trades in low transaction cost vehicle currencies which allows exporters to maintain price parity with their competitors. Fabling and Sanderson (2015) found that even though the U.S. accounts for only 12.1% of trade value, the US dollar accounts for a staggering 56.7% of trade value. On the other hand, on a trade-weighted basis, the NZ dollar accounts for only 20% of trade (Fabling & Sanderson, 2015). This reflects the relatively heavy use of the US dollar as a vehicle currency in trade for New Zealand exporters which may lower the impact that the expensive NZ dollar has on foreign consumers. Furthermore, the result shown in Figure 1b that 8
Page 1 and 2: MPRA Munich Personal RePEc Archive
Page 3 and 4: Contents 1 Introduction 4 2 Data an
Page 5 and 6: 1 Introduction The landscape in whi
Page 7: ested in macroeconomics and monetar
Page 11 and 12: the New Zealand dollar is overvalue
Page 13 and 14: Figure 4: MV Output Gap obtained su
Page 15 and 16: equations (Equation 5-7) for OLS es
Page 17 and 18: variables do not respond instantane
Page 19 and 20: from untabulated results, for the m
Page 21 and 22: Table 2: OLS Regressions for Opened
Page 23 and 24: Table 3: OLS Regressions for Opened
Page 25 and 26: (a) IS closed full (b) IS closed 91
Page 27 and 28: 6.2 Negative R 2 It is noted that a
Page 29 and 30: This “point of no return” is th
Page 31 and 32: as deviations from an average equil
Page 33 and 34: (a) The plane of level inflation ra
Page 35 and 36: Figure 10: The plane of interest ra
Page 37 and 38: (a) NZD overvalued by 10% (b) NZD u
Page 39 and 40: our approach. From (1) the positive
Page 41: Hargreaves, David, Bruce White, et

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