Eiji Ogawa

Takatoshi Itō

Yuri Nagataki Sasaki

In this paper we have constructed a theoretical model in which Asian firms maximize their profit, competing with Japanese and US firms in their markets. The duopoly model is used to determine export prices and volumes in response to the exchange rate fluctuations vis- ...-vis the Japanese yen and the US dollar. Then, the optimal basket weight to minimize the fluctuation of the growth rate of trade balance is derived. These are the novel features of our model. The export price equation and export volume equation are estimated for several Asian countries for the sample period of 1981 to 1996. Results are generally reasonable. The optimal currency weights for the yen and the US dollars are derived and compared with actual weights that had been adopted before the currency crisis of 1997. For all the countries in the sample, it is shown that the optimal weight of the yen is significantly higher than the actual weight.

How Did the Dollar Peg Fail in Asia?

National Bureau of Economic Research

Takeo Hoshi

Recent academic papers have shown that the Japanese sovereign debt situation is not sustainable. The puzzle is that the bond rate has remained low and stable. Some suggest that the low yield can be explained by domestic residents' willingness to hold Japanese government bonds (JGBs) despite its low return, and that as long as domestic residents remain home-biased, the JGBs are sustainable. About 95% of JGBs are currently owned by domestic residents. This paper argues that even with such dominance of domestic investors, if the amount of government debt breaches the ceiling imposed by the domestic private sector financial assets, the JGB rates can rapidly rise and the Japanese government can face difficulty rolling over the existing debt. A simulation is conducted on future paths of household saving and fiscal situations to show that the ceiling would be breached in the next 10 years or so without a drastic fiscal consolidation. This paper also shows that the government debt can be kept under the ceiling with sufficiently large tax increases. The JGB yields can rise even before the ceiling is hit, if the expectation of such drastic fiscal consolidation disappears. This paper points out several possible triggers for such a change in expectation. However, downgrading of JGBs by credit rating agencies is not likely to be a trigger, since past downgrades have not produced any change in the JGB yield. If and when the JGB rates rapidly rise, the Japanese financial institutions that hold a large amount of JGBs will sustain losses and the economy will suffer from fiscal austerity, financial instability, and inflation.

Takatoshi Itō

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