Interpreting the causes of and policy responses to export booms in developing countries

The past half century has witnessed an unprecedented rate of world economic development. One stylized fact found by many empirical studies is that most high growth episodes are usually characterized by high export growth. This study addresses some crucial aspects regarding the causes of and policy responses to export booms in developing countries.; The model in Chapter 1 shows that high export growth need not originate in the export sector of the economy. Actually, a rate of export growth in excess of that of GD{lcub} growth may stem from productivity improvement in either the tradable or the nontradable sector. The model also indicates that when TFP is not directly measurable, the real exchange rate can serve as a good indicator to distinguish between episodes of "exports driving growth" and those of "growth driving exports". Evidence from 44 countries over the period 1958-2004 shows that the nontradable sector can play as important a role as the tradable sector in driving episodes in which both GDP and exports grow rapidly.; Chapter 2 studies the policy responses to the export boom that China experienced over the period of its fixed exchange rate regime (1994-2005). It finds no evidence of Chinese government manipulating its currency value from 1994 until 2002. Starting from 2002, however, there is evidence of some degree of sterilization by the Central Bank of China (PBOC). But the great bulk of the large expansion of the monetary base during the fixed exchange rate period is explained as a result of "sterilization by the people", as they vastly increased their holding of real M2 balances.; Chapter 3 evaluates various works that use the macroeconomic balance approach or the Balassa-Samuelson effect approach to estimate China's equilibrium real exchange rate. It then discusses the potential weaknesses of these two approaches with respect to the case of China. It also studies the foreign reserves accumulation in China and finds clear signals of sterilization both by the People's Bank of China starting in 2002 and in the planned issuance by the government of yuan-denominated bonds in 2007.