Summary:
The stabilization effects of monetary policy and macro-prudential policy in an open economy are of concern to both academic researchers and policymakers. The establishment of a macro-prudential policy framework has become an important research topic worldwide since the global financial crisis in 2008. China has explored a series of macro-prudential policies and proposed a two-pillar regulation framework consisting of “monetary policy+macro-prudential policy”. In recent years, many scholars have studied the two-pillar framework.However, less attention is paid when discussing such framework in a managed floating exchange rate regime.The central bank has maintained a relatively stable RMB exchange rate through measures such as open market operations in the FX market, which is also an important monetary policy tool. According to the regulations of the People's Bank of China, maintaining the stability of the RMB exchange rate is one of the objectives of China's monetary policy. Therefore, it is important to study how China's monetary policy is affected by its exchange rate policy, and the coordination between the monetary policy and the macro-prudential policy under the “two-pillar” regulation framework. This study first empirically examines the intervention mechanism of the RMB’s managed floating exchange rate regime and its impact on China's monetary policy. Based on Chen et al. (2018), we incorporateexchange rate pressure (either appreciation or depreciation) into monetary policy reaction function. We find that the augmented monetary policy rule is asymmetric. Specifically,the monetary policy negatively responds to an expected depreciation on the RMB while there is no evident reaction when the currency is expected to appreciate.A possible explanation for this asymmetry is that the central bank mainly responds to the appreciation pressure on the RMB through sterilized FX interventions, which does not affect the overall money supply. Next, we build an open macroeconomic model consistingof the financial sector and the currency mismatch. The model illustrates how monetary and macroprudential policies help to achieve macroeconomic and financial stability. Currency mismatch commonly occurs in emerging market economies that are in the process of economic and financial globalization (Eichengreen and Hausmann, 1999),and it has become increasingly prominent in China.After the “8.11” exchange rate regime reform in 2015, the depreciation pressure on the RMB rose sharply, leading domestic agents to repay U.S. dollar debts early to minimize their loss. This tightened budget constraints and affects economic and financial stability. Furthermore, the central bank has clearly stated that the macro-prudential management of external debt is also part of capital account management. Therefore, our model of macroprudential policies focuses on the tools used to manage foreign currency debt. To study the exchange rate regime, this study adopts “occasional binding constraints” to capture the asymmetric responses of China's monetary policy to exchange rate changes in a structural macro model. We find that under a managed floating regime, the central bank is forced to follow foreign interest rate hikes to restrain the depreciation of the RMB exchange rate. In the absence of macro-prudential policies on cross-border capital flows, the central bank needs to closely follow foreign interest rate hikes by raising the domestic interest rate. Thus,it increases the volatility of economic and financial variables. Macro-prudential policies reduce economic fluctuations to a certain extent and achieve macroeconomic and financial stability. We further examine the impact of pure floating and managed floating exchange rate policies on macroeconomic and financial variables in the presence of macroprudential policies. We find that in the medium and long term, the managed floating regime has smaller fluctuations in its core macro variables, such as output and external debt, than the fully floating regime. The main contribution of this study is its investigation of an asymmetric monetary policy in a managed floating exchange rate regimeand the coordination of monetary and macro-prudential policy. This study provides theoretical support for the construction of a two-pillar regulatory framework under an open economy. Our study also offers some suggestions for future research on macroeconomic problems in other emerging market economies.
芦东, 周梓楠, 周行. 开放经济下的“双支柱”调控稳定效应研究[J]. 金融研究, 2019, 474(12): 125-146.
LU Dong, ZHOU Zinan, ZHOU Hang. Stabilization Effects of the Two-Pillar Framework in an Open Economy. Journal of Financial Research, 2019, 474(12): 125-146.
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