Real exchange rates, international trade and macroeconomic fundamentals

In this dissertation, I examine two questions in international macroeconomics. The first paper examines real exchange rate determination and its relationship with international trade fundamentals. A large number of studies on real exchange rates have found virtually no relationship between macroeconomic fundamentals and real exchange rates in the short- to medium-run. My first paper derives a new equilibrium condition between real exchange rates, international trade and macroeconomic fundamentals for a wide class of general equilibrium models, allowing for goods market frictions with proportional transport costs and non-traded goods, and a wide variety of asset market structures. If consumption bundle is a constant-elasticity-of-substitution bundle between the home traded good, foreign imports and the non-traded good, then there is an equilibrium relationship between real exchange rates and relative composite-good consumptions plus two other factors: the ratio of bilateral trade flows and the ratio of domestic traded good consumptions. These additional trade factors arise from bilateral intratemporal allocations. I also present empirical evidence that this trade-based representation of real exchange rates significantly improves on the standard consumption-ratio formula in understanding actual real exchange rates movements. In particular, it identifies preference shocks or incomplete markets as possible explanations for the Backus-Smith (1993) puzzle by breaking the tight relationship between real exchange rates and relative consumptions.; My second paper investigates the dynamics of IMF conditional lending to a country experiencing a crisis. Empirically IMF bailout packages and reform implementation are both gradual processes. I model a repeated lending game between the IMF and the country under crisis. I illustrate the dynamics of a country under crisis to increase in reform effort to induce IMF to release the next tranche of credit. In an efficient conditionality agreement, the optimal bailout policy should be front-loaded for a country that requires short-term liquidity support, but back-loaded for a country that requires more long-term fundamental reforms.