http://www.courses.fas.harvard.edu/~ec2530b/

v. April 14, 2004

Economics Department, Harvard University, Spring 2004

Graduate International Finance

Economics 2530b

 

Professor Kenneth Rogoff, Office hours: Wednesdays, 1-2:15 PM or by appointment

Economics Department, Littauer Center, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138-3001, krogoff@fas.harvard.edu

Staff Assistant: Jane Trahan, jtrahan@harvard.edu, 617-496-0062

Course time and location: 10-11:30 AM, Mondays and Wednesdays, Littauer Center (Economics Department) room M-16.

 

Text and Readings:

There is no text. However, a significant number of readings for the course are taken from

Foundations of International Macroeconomics, by Maurice Obstfeld and Kenneth Rogoff (MIT Press, October 1996; available at Harvard Coop, and on reserve at Littauer Library). The solution manual is available online.

All other core readings for the course will be available on-line via links from the course webpage site. The required readings will also be available on reserve at Littauer Library (in alphabetical order, in two binders).

Course requirements:

  1. Periodic short assignments (10%). These may be problems but will mostly consist of answering short questions related to course readings, especially those about to be covered in class. You are encouraged to work with your classmates, and may give answers in groups of three or less.
  2. Two short reports, due March 17 and April 19: Class participants will be asked to work through two of a selection of assigned papers, generally empirical. Depending on the paper, you will be asked to either provide critical missing intermediate steps, check on core empirical results, or recalibrate a simulation model. These assignments -- intended to be written up in short papers -- may be done as part of a small group of 2-3 persons. You are urged to assess the paper critically. (50% each)

Outline:

The following outline gives a guide to the material that will be covered in the course and a planned class schedule. Updates to the class schedule will be given on the online version of this syllabus, which will be maintained on a regular basis. The main readings for the class are listed first (readings from OR are always main readings unless otherwise stated). Recommended secondary readings are clearly marked.

 

An overview

Wed. 2/4:  History of thought in international finance and perspective on recent research debates

Maurice Obstfeld, Mundell-Fleming Lecture: "International Macroeconomics: Beyond the Mundell-Fleming Model", IMF Staff Papers, Vol. 47 Special Issue, 2001.

Maurice Obstfeld, Jay Shambaugh and Alan Taylor, "The Trilemma in History: Policy Choices for Exchange Rates, Monetary Policies, and Capital Mobility" mimeo, UC Berkeley, November 2003.

I. Puzzles

Mon 2/9:  The Purchasing Power Parity Puzzle

Charles Engel, "Accouting for US Real Exchange Rate Changes," Journal of Political Economy 107(3), June 1999, 507-538.

Kenneth Rogoff, "The Purchasing Power Parity Puzzle," Journal of Economic Literature 34, June 1996, 647-68.

Jean Imbs, Haroon Mumtaz, Morton O. Ravn, Helene Rey, "PPP Strikes Back: Aggregation and the Real Exchange Rate," NBER WP9372 December 2002.

Alan Taylor and Mark Taylor , "The Purchasing Power Parity Debate” mimeo UC Davis, November 2003. Available only as hard copy in binder on Reserve at Littauer Library.

Shiu-Sheng Chen and Charles Engel, "Does `Aggregation Bias’ Explain the PPP Puzzle?" , manuscript, February 2004, University of Wisconsin, Madison.

Supplementary Readings:

Charles Engel and John Rogers, "How Wide Is the Border," American Economic Review, 86, December 1996, 1112-1125.

Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas, "Exchange Rates and Jobs: What Do We Learn from Job flows?" NBER Marcoeconomics Annual, 1998, 153-208.

Kenneth Froot and Kenneth Rogoff, "Perspectives on PPP and Long-Run Real Exchange Rates," in Handbook of International Economics vol. 3, Gene Grossman and Kenneth Rogoff (eds.), (Amsterdam: Elsevier Science Publishers B.V., 1995): 1647-88. NBER Working Paper 4952.

Penny K. Goldberg and Michael Knetter, "Goods Prices and Exchange Rates: What Have We Learned?" Journal of Economic Literature 35 (September 1997): 1243-72.

Alan M. Taylor,. "Potential Pitfalls for the Purchasing-Power Parity Puzzle? Sampling and Specification Biases in Mean-Reversion Tests of the Law of One Price," Econometrica 69 (March 2001): 473-98; also NBER Working Paper No. 7577, February 2000.

 

Wed 2/11: PPP puzzle continued; The consumption correlations puzzle and the home bias in equities puzzle

Obstfeld and Rogoff, chapter 5.

Backus, David K., Patrick Kehoe and Finn Kydland, 1992, “International Real Business Cycles,” Journal of Political Economy, 100 (4) August, 745-775.

Richard Portes and Helene Rey, " The Determinants of Cross Border Equity Flows," mimeo, revised 2003.

Supplementary Readings:

Marianne Baxter, Urban Jermann, and Robert King "Nontraded goods, nontraded factors and international nondiversification," Journal of International Economics 44(2), April 1998, 211-229. (Also NBER Working paper 5175, 1995.)

Karen Lewis (1996), "What can explain the apparent lack of consumption risk sharing?" Journal of Political Economy 104 (April): 267-97.

Philippe Martin and Helene Rey, "Financial Super-Markets: Size Matters for Asset Trade," mimeo, Princeton University.

 

Mon 2/16:  President’s Day: Harvard closed

Tues 2/17: SUBSTITUTE CLASS (for March 22 and 24) LITTAUER M-16, 6:00-8:00 PM

Exchange rate regimes in developing countries

Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff, "The Modern History of Exchange Rate Arrangements: A Reinterpretation," Quarterly Journal of Economics, forthcoming 2004. NBER Working Paper No. 8963, May 2002.

Kenneth Rogoff, Aasim Husain, Ashoka Mody, Robin Brooks, and Nienke Oomes, “The Evolution and Performance of Exchange Rate Regimes,” IMF Working Paper WP/03/243, December 2003 (83 pages), forthcoming as an IMF Occasional Paper. Lecture notes.

Sebastian Edwards (UCLA) "Current Account Imbalances: History, Trends, and Adjustment Mechanisms" presented as the Fourth Mundell-Fleming Lecture, International Monetary Fund, November 2003.

Wed 2/18: A Unified Explanation?

Maurice Obstfeld and Kenneth Rogoff, "The Six Major Puzzles in International Macroeconomics: Is there a Common Cause?"  in Ben Bernanke and Kenneth Rogoff (eds.), NBER Macroeconomics Annual 2000 (Cambridge: MIT Press). 339-390. Also NBER Working Paper 7777, July 2000. Lecture notes.

Supplementary Readings on Feldstein-Horioka Puzzle:

Tesar, Linda, "Savings, investment and international capital flows," Journal of International Economics 31(1-2): 55-78, August 1991.

Jaume Ventura, "Towards a Theory of Current Accounts," The World Economy 26(4), April 2003, 483-512.

Jaume Ventura, "A Portfolio View of the US Current Account Deficit," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, July 2001(1), 241-253.

Olivier Blanchard and Francesco Giovazzi, “Current Account Deficits in the Euro Area: The End of the Feldstein–Horioka Puzzle?Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Fall 2002(2), 147-209.

 

II. Imperfections in International Capital Markets

Mon 2/23: Reputation for repayment models of international debt versus direct sanction models

OR page 349-379.

Amador, Manuel,  "A Political Economy Model of Sovereign Debt Repayment," mimeo, Stanford University.

Supplementary readings (unless otherwise stated, you can find complete cites in OR):

The classic article is Eaton and Gersovitz (ReStud, 48( April) 1981, 289-309). Another seminal paper is Sachs, "Theoretical Issues in International Borrowing" Princeton Studies in International Finance, 54 (July) 1984; also available as NBER Working Paper No. 1189. Among other things, this paper was the first to articulate the analogy between Diamond-Dybvig-type bank runs and runs on short-term country debt. The Eaton and Fernandez survey, "Sovereign Debt," Handbook of International Economics, Vol. 3, eds. Grossman and Rogoff (which also appeared as an NBER working paper) is also useful.

C. Klingen, B. Weder, and J. Zettelmeyer, "How Private Creditors Fared in Emerging Debt Markets, 1970-2000,” mimeo, International Monetary Fund, November 2003.

Bulow, Jeremy and Kenneth Rogoff, "Sovereign Debt: Is to Forgive to Forget?" American Economic Review 79 (March 1989), 43-50.

Wed 2/25 Debt continued

Rose, Andrew K., “One Reason Countries Pay their Debts: Renegotiation and International Trade.” National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper 8853, March 2002.

Wed 3/1:  Currency Unions

Andrew Rose, "One Money, One Market: Estimating the Effects of a Common Currency on Trade"  Economic Policy 15(30), April 2000, 7-45. Rose finds that the effects of currency unions on trade are remarkably large, on the order of 300 percent.

Supplementary Readings:

Alberto Alesina, Robert Barro and Silvana Tenreyro, “Optimal Currency Areas,” in NBER Macroeconomics Annual 2002, Mark Gertler and Kenneth Rogoff, eds., pp. 301-356 (including discussions by Rose and Dornbusch). NBER Working Paper No. 9072, July 2002.

 

IV. Speculative Exchange Rate Attacks

Wed 3/3:  Basic models and empirical issues: Salant-Henderson-Krugman model, multiple equilibria ("generation 2") models, empirical anomalies:

OR, pp. 558-67, 576-78, 648-653.

Stephen Morris and Hyun Song Shin, "Unique Equilibrium in a Model of Self-Fulfilling Currency Attacks," American Economic Review 88 (June 1998), 587-97.

See also the correction to Morris and Shin's theorem 2 in Frank Heinemann, "Unique Equilibrium in a Model of Self-Fulfilling Currency Attacks: Comment," American Economic Review 90 (March 2000), 316-18.

Supplementary Readings:

Ilan Goldfajn and Rodrigo Valdes, "Are Currency Crises Predictable?" European Economic Review 42(1998), 873-85. Also IMF Working Paper No. 97/159.

Graciela Kaminsky and Carmen Reinhardt, "The Twin Crises: The Causes of Banking and Balance of Payments Problems," American Economic Review 89, June 1999, 473-500. Click here for access to data base.

Mon 3/8: speculative attacks continued

 

Fernando Broner, “Discrete Devaluations and Multiple Equilibria in a First Generation Model of Currency Crises,” mimeo, University of Maryland, Feb. 2004.

Ivan Pastine, "Speculation and the Decision to Abandon a Fixed Exchange Rate Regime," Journal of International Economics 57(1), June 2002, 197-229.

 

Supplementary readings:

Olivier Jeanne, "Debt Maturity and the Global Financial Architecture," CEPR Discussion Paper No. 2520, August 2000.

 

Wed. 3/10 The Dornbusch Model and Empirical Exchange Rate Modeling

Obstfeld and Rogoff, chapter 9, 605-634.

Kenneth Rogoff, "Dornbusch’s Overshooting Model After Twenty-Five Years," IMF Staff Papers 49, Special Issue, 2002, pp. 1-35. ). (A slightly earlier version that will give you a higher quality printout is available at http://www.courses.fas.harvard.edu/~ec2530b/Papers/ .)

Supplementary readings:

Martin Eichenbaum and Charles Evans, 1995, “Some Empirical Evidence on the Effects of Shocks to Monetary Policy on Exchange Rates,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, 110 (4), November, 975-1009.

Richard Meese and Kenneth Rogoff, "The Out-of-Sample Failure of Empirical Exchange Rate Models: Sampling Error or Misspecification?" in Jacob Frenkel (ed.), Exchange Rates and International Macroeconomics (NBER and University of Chicago Press, 1983), 67-105.

 

Mon 3/15: Extensions of Generation 1 models and Generation 2 models:

Phillippe Aghion, Philippe Bacchetta, and Abhjit Banerjee, "Financial Development and the Instability of Open Economies," NBER Working Paper No. 10246. Journal of Monetary Economics, forthcoming 2004.  

 

Wed 3/17: 

Paul R. Bergin and Reuven Glick, "Endogenous Tradability and Macroeconomic Implications," manuscript, University of California at Davis, February 17, 2004. An earlier version was issued as NBER WP9739, June 2003.

 

Mon 3/22: No class—substitute class evening February 17

Wed 3/24:  No class—substitute class evening February 17

Mon. 3/29 and Wed. 3/31:  Spring Break, Harvard closed

Mon 4/5: Sustainability

Carmen M. Reinhart, Kenneth Rogoff and Miguel A. Savastano, "Debt Intolerance," in William Brainard and George Perry (eds.), Brookings Papers on Economic Activity 1: 2003, 1-74.

International Monetary Fund, World Economic Outlook September 2003, Chapter III: " Public Debt in Emerging Markets: Is It Too High?

Supplementary Readings:

Kenneth Rogoff, "Institutions for Reducing Global Financial Instability," Journal of Economic Perspectives 13, Fall 1999, 21-42.

Jeremy Bulow and Kenneth Rogoff, "Cleaning Up Third-World Debt Without Getting Taken To the Cleaners," Journal of Economic Perspectives 4 (Winter 1990), 31-42.

Kenneth Rogoff and Jeromin Zettelmeyer, "Bankruptcy Procedures for Sovereigns: A History of Ideas, 1976-2001," IMF Staff Papers Volume 49, Number 3, 2002..

Obstfeld and Rogoff, 407- 419.

Externalities to Human Capital: Robert E. Lucas, 1988, “Why Doesn’t Capital Flow from Rich to Poor Countries?” American Economic Review, May 1990, pp. 92-96.

Mark Gertler and Kenneth Rogoff, "North-South Lending and Endogenous Domestic Capital Market Inefficiencies," Journal of Monetary Economics 26, October 1990, 245-266.

Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff, "Serial Default And The “Paradox” Of Rich To Poor Capital Flows," forthcoming (with revisions) American Economic Review 94, May 2004.

 

Wed 4/7:  Capital Controls

Eswar S. Prasad, Kenneth Rogoff, Shang-Jin Wei, and M. Ayan Kose, "Effects of Financial Globalization on Developing Countries: Some Empirical Evidence"  IMF Occasional Paper No. 220, 2003. Lecture Notes.

Kristin Forbes, “Capital Controls: Mud in the Wheels of Market Discipline,” NBER Working Paper No. 10284, February 2004.

Supplementary Readings:

Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas and Olivier Jeanne, "The Elusive Gains from International Financial Integration," NBER WP9684 May 2003.

Kristin J. Forbes, "One Cost of the Chilean Capital Controls: Increased Financial Constraints for Small Traded Firms," NBER WP9777 June 2003.

Sebnem Kalemli-Ozcan, Bent E. Sorenson, and Oved Yosha, "Risk sharing and Industrial Specialization: Regional and International Evidence," American Economic Review 93(3), June 2003, 903-918.

 

Mon 4/12

Roberto Chang and Andres Velasco, “A Model of Financial Crises in Emerging Markets,” (with R. Chang), Quarterly Journal of Economics 116(2) 2001, 489-517.

 

V. New Open Economy Macroeconomics

Wed 4/14:

Maurice Obstfeld and Kenneth Rogoff, "New Directions in Stochastic Open Economy Models," Journal of International Economics 48 (February 2000), 117-153. Also NBER WP 7313.

Corsetti, Giancarlo and Paolo Pesenti, “Welfare and Macroeconomic Interdependence,” Quarterly Journal of Economics 116(2), 2001, 421-445.

Bergin, Paul, and Reuven Glick, “Endogenous Nontradability and Macroeconomic Implications,” National Bureau of Economic Research Paper 9739, June 2003.

Supplementary Readings:

OR, chapter 10

Paola Caselli, "Fiscal Consolidations under Fixed Exchange Rates," European Economic Review 45(3), March 2001, 425-450.

Philip Lane, "The New Open Economy Macroeconomics: A Survey," CEPR Discussion Paper #2115, March 1999. Journal of International Economics 54(2), 2001, 235-266.

See also Brian Doyle’s New Open Economy Macroeconomics Homepage.

Mon 4/19:

Clarida, Richard, Jordi Gali, and Mark Gertler, "Optimal Monetary Policy in Open versus Closed Economies: An Integrated Approach," American Economic Review Papers and Proceedings 91 (2), May 2001, pp. 248-252.

"Global Implications of Self-Oriented National Monetary Rules," (with Maurice Obstfeld), Quarterly Journal of Economics 117, May 2002, 503-36.

Maurice Obstfeld, “Pricing-to-Market, the Interest-Rate Rule, and the Exchange Rate,” unpublished manuscript, University of California at Berkeley, April 2004.

Supplementary Reading:

Paul Bergin and Robert Feenstra, "Pricing to Market, Staggered Contracts, and Real Exchange Rate Persistence." NBER Working Paper 7026, revised February 2000.

Second Short Report Due

 

Wed 4/21: New generation of Empirical Models

Douglas Laxton and Paolo Pesenti, “Monetary Rules for Small, Open, Emerging Economies,” Carnegie Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, forthcoming.

Supplementary Readings:

Paolo Pesenti (New York Fed), "Benefits and Spillovers of Greater Competition in Europe: A Macroeconomic Assessment."

 

THE FINAL FOUR LECTURES WILL BE IN-CLASS PRESENTATIONS.

Mon 4/26: 

Sebnem Kalemli-Ozcan, Bent E. Sorenson, and Oved Yosha, "Risk sharing and Industrial Specialization: Regional and International Evidence," American Economic Review 93(3), June 2003, 903-918.

Wed 4/28:

 

V.V. Chari, Patrick Kehoe, and Ellen McGrattan, “Can Sticky Price Models Generate Volatile and Persistent Exchange Rates?” Review of Economic Studies 69(3), August 2002, 533-563.

 

Mon 5/3:  PPP continued

Wed 5/5:

Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas and Olivier Jeanne, "The Elusive Gains from International Financial Integration," NBER WP9684, May 2003.