TAIYO YOSHIMI, Ph.D.

Global and regional integration of financial markets with enhanced international monetary transactions between economic agents increases the exchange rate risk. As this obstacle is growing at speed, market integration should be developed with a view to avoid this risk. In this study, we investigate exchange rate pass-through (ERPT) to examine who takes this risk. Specifically, we estimate the degree of ERPT for individual products by using primary auction price data of used/second-hand construction machinery purchased in Japan and then exported to Thailand for resale. Our empirical analysis of these data at the individual product level enables us to avoid bias in estimating ERPT caused by the use of aggregated data. We find that ERPT is asymmetric and changes in exchange rates are reflected in baht-denominated resale prices only when the baht appreciates against the yen. This indicates that raising resale prices in the destination market is more difficult for the exporters than lowering them, meaning that they can suffer significantly from the exchange rate risk. This paper serves as a reference for a safer financial market by learning how market players are influenced by the exchange rate in a trade market with a unique dataset.

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Kai Po Jenny Law, Eiji Satoh and Taiyo Yoshimi

2018

North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Vol.46 (November): 261-271

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Tariff rates under a free trade agreement (FTA) are not necessarily used in the majority of trade, even among members of an FTA. One of the causes of this phenomenon is the presence of rules of origin (RoOs), which require exporters to comply with specific conditions when utilizing an FTA scheme. To consider how RoOs should be designed so that exporters can more robustly use an FTA scheme, this paper investigates the effect of exchange rates on FTA scheme utilization with a focus on RoOs. Exchange rates affect exporters' compliance with RoOs by changing the so-called value-added ratio, which is defined as [1 – (Price of imported inputs from non-FTA member countries/Export product price)]. Based on a model of pricing-to-market, we propose that an unexpected depreciation of exporters' currency against importers' currency improves the value-added ratio through a rise in the export product's price, which in turn enhances exporters' utilization of an FTA scheme. We also show strong empirical support for the proposition using the detailed product-level data on FTA scheme utilization in Korea's imports from Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries.

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Kazunobu Hayakawa, Han-Sung Kim and Taiyo Yoshimi

2017

Journal of International Money and Finance, Vol.75 (July): 93-108

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In this paper, we examine the welfare cost of renouncing monetary policy autonomy in a model that includes labor mobility and pricing-to-market (PTM) behavior in firms. We find that renouncing monetary policy autonomy becomes a cost of currency integration when the consumption basket weights differ between candidate countries and when country-specific total factor productivity (TFP) shocks hit economies, even when the union fulfills the classic optimum currency area theory of labor mobility. We also found that a firm's PTM behavior has a significant effect on the welfare implications of currency integration combined with labor mobility. For instance, currency integration does not produce greater welfare losses in the PTM case (where the labor input weights differ across member countries and asymmetric labor disutility shocks occur), although greater welfare losses arise in the case of producer currency pricing.

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Taiyo Yoshimi

2016

Global Economic Review, Vol.45, No.1 (February): 78-96

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In the present paper, we constructed a DSGE model with two types of workers with heterogeneous wage contracts, unionized and non-unionized wages, to investigate macroeconomic dynamics and welfare implications. The innovative feature of this paper is to examine direct substitution effects between workers with both types of wage contracts by introducing firms that jointly employ them. It is revealed that the macroeconomic volatility and welfare loss to asymmetric labor productivity shock increased and decreased with the elasticity of substitution between two types of workers and labor unions' bargaining power, respectively. Furthermore, those of monetary policy shock increased with labor unions' bargaining power, which implies that better monetary policy design is more important when unions are more influential.

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Muneya Matsui and Taiyo Yoshimi

2015

Economic Modelling, Vol.49 (September): 72-80

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We investigate the welfare implications of monetary policy arrangements in a small open economy, considering firms' bank-based finances that are widely observed in emerging ASEAN countries. The impact of an unexpected change in the lending rate spread, or a lending rate spread shock, depends on the presence of banking activity in the economy. This presence is important in Malaysia and Vietnam, where welfare effects of this type of shock are at least comparable to those of foreign monetary policy shocks. We also find that a rigid exchange rate arrangement amplifies the effect of a shock.

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Taiyo Yoshimi

2014

Asian Economic Journal, Vol.28, No.1 (March): 19-39

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We assess whether renouncing monetary policy autonomy becomes a cost of currency integration under labor mobility in the framework of the New Open Economy Macroeconomics. Assuming Nash equilibrium among central banks of candidate countries, we find that the forfeiture of monetary policy autonomy becomes a cost when country-specific total factor productivity shocks hit them, labor input weights differ between candidate countries, and country specific shocks on marginal disutility of labor occur. These finer points suggest that it cannot generally be concluded that there is no cost of currency integration under labor mobility, as discussed in the classic Optimum Currency Area theory.

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Taiyo Yoshimi

2014

Journal of Economic Integration, Vol.29, No.1 (March): 188-209

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We construct a DSGE model with heterogeneity in wage rigidity, and compare the welfare effects of several monetary policy rules, including the standard Taylor rule. We find that monetary policy rules considering wage inflations improve the welfare by stabilizing employment against the labor productivity shock. Further, a monetary policy rule with consideration for the inflation of wages which are adjusted more frequently, namely more flexible wage inflation, becomes better than one with consideration for less flexible wage inflation. It realizes smaller welfare loss than the standard Taylor rule when the weight on the labor disutility in the household's utility function is sufficiently large.

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Muneya Matsui and Taiyo Yoshimi

2013

Review of Integrative Business and Economics Research, vol.2, issue 2 (July): 489-520

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This paper focuses on recent events which include the RMB reform in China and the global financial crisis to investigate statistically recent diverging trends among East Asian currencies. For the purpose, their weighted average value (Asian Monetary Unit: AMU) and their deviations (AMU Deviation Indicators) from benchmark levels are used to analyze both β and σ convergences of East Asian currencies. Our analytical results show that the monetary authority of China has still kept stabilizing the exchange rate of the Chinese yuan against only the US dollar even though it announced its adoption of a managed floating exchange rate system with reference to a currency basket. Analytical results on β and σ convergences show that deviations among the East Asian currencies have been diverging in recent years, especially after 2005. The widening deviations reflect not the RMB reform but recent international capital flows and the global financial crisis. In addition, it is important as its background that the monetary authorities of the countries are adopting a variety of exchange rate systems. In other words, a coordination failure in adopting exchange rate systems among these monetary authorities increases volatility and misalignment of intraregional exchange rates in East Asia.

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Eiji Ogawa and Taiyo Yoshimi

2010

International Journal of Intelligent Technologies and Applied Statistics, vol.3, No.2 (June): 235-261

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Using panel data for 17 Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries for the period 1983-2003, this paper investigates the effects of financial integration on specialization and international structural similarity. Theoretically, financial integration motivates countries to specialize on the basis of their comparative advantages and decreases the structural similarity between them. Our empirical analyses support the hypothesis.

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Taiyo Yoshimi

2009

The International Economy, No.13 (November): 50-64

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This study examines the determinants of the probability that exporters choose between a most-favored nation (MFN) scheme and multiple regional trade agreement (RTA) schemes. It estimates a nested logit model using a transaction-level import data for Thailand from other ASEAN countries in 2014. The study finds that RTA schemes are more likely to be chosen rather than the MFN scheme in case of a larger transaction value. Among RTA schemes, the one with less restrictive rules of origin or lower RTA tariff rates is more likely to be chosen. In addition to some results of simulation analyses, this study provides some quantitative interpretation of our estimation results.

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Kazunobu Hayakawa, Nuttawut Laksanapanyakul and Taiyo Yoshimi

2018

IDE Discussion Paper No.684 (January)

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Mega regional trade agreements (RTAs), such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership, are likely to overlap with existing RTA networks. When RTA networks overlap, firms are required to choose from multiple RTA schemes when they trade. This study investigates how RTA tariff rates affect the use of both own and other tariff schemes when multiple RTA schemes are available. We first theoretically explore such choice and derive some propositions. Then, we empirically test those propositions for Japan's imports because Japan already has not only bilateral but also multilateral RTAs with some Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries. The key finding is that the utilization rate of an RTA scheme is higher when its preferential rates are lower compared to the rates in the other RTAs.

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Kazunobu Hayakawa, Shujiro Urata and Taiyo Yoshimi

2017

RIETI Discussion Paper, 17-E-002 (January)

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While previous theoretical studies have examined exporters' choice of tariff schemes without considering explicit heterogeneity of importers, an empirical analysis on regional trade agreement (RTA) utilization is, in general, possible by employing trade data covering the importers' side. To better link the empirical analysis with a theoretical model, this study develops a model that sheds light on the role of both importers' and exporters' characteristics in RTA utilization. The model enables us to replicate stylized facts concerning importers' RTA utilization. Based on this model, we derive some propositions on the determinants of RTA utilization rates (i.e., share of imports under RTA schemes out of total imports) at an import firm-product level. Finally, we found that these theoretical predictions are supported by highly detailed import data in Thailand from Australia from 2007 to 2009.

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Kazunobu Hayakawa, Nuttawut Laksanapanyakul and Taiyo Yoshimi

2016

IDE Discussion Paper No.615 (August)

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This study contributes to the literature on gravity analysis by explicitly incorporating both most favored nation (MFN) rates and regional trade agreement (RTA) rates. Our gravity equation considers the fact that all exporters do not necessarily utilize RTA schemes, even when exporting to their RTA partners. We apply the tariff line-level data on worldwide trade to this gravity equation. As a result, we find a significantly negative coefficient for the (log) ratio of RTA rates to MFN rates. From the quantitative point of view, we show that in the first year of the Japan-Australia Economic Partnership (i.e., 2015), exports from Australia to Japan are expected to increase by 6% compared with the exports in 2014. Furthermore, it is shown that, based on the subsequent reduction in RTA rates, the magnitude of the trade-creation effect through tariff reductions gradually rises over time.

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Kazunobu Hayakawa and Taiyo Yoshimi

2016

IDE Discussion Paper No.614 (August)

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This study examines how the importing process time affects export patterns at an establishment level. We first theoretically discuss the effects of import time on not only exports but also export shipment frequency and exports per shipment. Then, we derive some propositions regarding those effects. Next, by employing highly detailed customs data for Thailand from 2007 to 2011, we empirically investigate those propositions. In this study, the time to import is measured at an establishment level using the difference between the dates on which import shipments arrived in ports and then were released from the container yard. Our main finding is that a longer time reduces total exports, particularly through decreasing export frequency. Significantly negative effects on exports per shipment appear in some specific cases. A longer time to import also reduces total imports, particularly through decreasing import frequency.

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Kazunobu Hayakawa, Nuttawut Laksanapanyakul and Taiyo Yoshimi

2016

IDE Discussion Paper No.566 (March)

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This paper investigates how exchange rates affect the utilization of a free trade agreement (FTA) scheme in trading. Changes in exchange rates affect FTA utilization by two ways. The first way is by changing the excess profits gained by utilizing the FTA scheme, and the second way is by promoting the compliance of rules of origin. Our theoretical models predict that the depreciation of exporters' currency against that of importers enhances the likelihood of FTA utilization through those two channels. Furthermore, our empirical analysis, which is based on rich tariff-line-level data on the utilization of FTA schemes in Korea's imports from ASEAN countries, supports the theoretical prediction. We also show that the effects are smaller for more differentiated products.

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Kazunobu Hayakawa, Han-Sung Kim and Taiyo Yoshimi

2015

IDE Discussion Paper No.494 (February)

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This paper investigates recent diverging trends among East Asian currencies as well as recent movements of the weighted average value of East Asian currencies (Asian Monetary Unit: AMU) and deviations (AMU Deviation Indicators) of the East Asian currencies from the average values. Our empirical analysis shows that linkages with the US dollar have been weakening since 2001 or 2002 for some of the East Asian countries. On the other hand, the monetary authority of China continues stabilizing the exchange rate of the Chinese yuan against the US dollar even though it announced its adoption of a currency basket system. It is found that the weighted average of East Asian currencies has been appreciating against the US dollar in recent years while depreciating against the currency basket of the US dollar and the euro. Also, deviations among the East Asian currencies have been widening in recent years, reflecting the fact that these countries' monetary authorities are adopting a variety of exchange rate systems. In other words, a coordination failure in adopting exchange rate systems among these monetary authorities increases volatility and misalignment of intra-regional exchange rates in East Asia.

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Eiji Ogawa and Taiyo Yoshimi

2008

RIETI Discussion Paper, 08-E-010 (March)

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