BUSM448 Business Strategy Samples

The concept of purchasing power parity (PPP) finds an instrumental place as a subject in the domain of international finance. The most elemental assumption underpinning the concept of PPP is that the prices in different countries for a standardized basket of goodsmust be equal when expressed in terms of same currency. The in-principle idea anchoring this long-run theory is differences in domestic and foreign currencies serve as a determinant of the cross-country exchange rates. This implies that for any two given countries, equilibrium exchange rate condition is satisfied when the purchasing power remains same in both countries (Rogoff, 1996).

Literature Review

Historical Perspective on Purchasing Power Parity

The origins of purchasing power parity can be traced back to the then burning question as to how to restore the financial system of the world post World-War I era. Pre-war era operated on gold standards wherein the currencies of countries were convertible to gold following fixed parities. Cross-currency exchange rate then, in the simplest terms, reflected their comparative gold values. However, in the aftermath of world war, speculators thought that countries would devalue their currencies for want of seigniorage revenues and soon gold system was abolished which posited an incumbent need to reset the exchange rates in a manner that would cause minimal disruption to government finances and prices. Since,

inflation had substantially altered prices during the period of was, continuing with the pre-war exchange rates was not feasible without disrupting prices (Rogoff, 1996).

Gustav Cassel (1921) a Swedish economist professed the use of purchasing power parity as means of settling gold parities through determination of cross-country exchang rates needed to achieve and maintain PPP. His fundamental proposition was to compute cumulative inflation rates since 1914 to arrive at inflation differential which could then be utilised towards arriving at exchange rates (Cassel, 1921).

Synthesis of Purchasing Power Parity

The theory takes into account the possibility of short-term deviations in the exchange rates between the countries which forays a possibility of arbitrage in cross-country commodity market. Market participants exploiting this arbitrage opportunity forces the exchange rates to move in the direction of PPP equilibrium which exhausts any existing arbitrage. Policymakers and market participants rely on the assumption that parity in purchasing power holds to enable them study/predict the behaviour of exchange rates in the long-run (Arize, Malindretos, and Ghosh, 2015).

PPP also finds its application in the foreign exchange rate market where financial authorities depend on it to probe evidence in support of undervaluation or overvaluation of exchange rate relative to equilibrium value as indicated by PPP. Additionally, financial analysts invariably rely on PPP as a measure of policy analysis to achieve comparison of real purchasing power among countries. PPP also finds practical application where the level of trade integration between countries or bilateral or multilateral trade agreements and liberalization is the locus standi of policymakers (Arize, Malindretos, & Nippani, 2004).Due to the conspicuous and still unclear relationship between the PPP and the real exchange rates for lack of sufficient empirical evidence, PPP has ever since been a stock of frequent empirical studies that has led to accretion of enormous amounts of literature available today. An increasing number of past studies provide empirical evidence at least to the effect that real exchange rates (RER) converge towards purchasing power parity in the very long run. Real exchange rates are arrived at post adjusting the nominal exchange rates for differences in the levels of national prices. Such differences arise due to differing levels of inflation as also several other factors. RER reflects higher deviations and volatility from PPP in the shorter run (Taylor, 2003).Past studies concertedly echo the fact that speed at which RER converges to PPP is rather very slow and the deviations of RER from PPP damp out at the rate of 15 % per year with a half-life of 3-5 years. As a matter of fact, the magnitude of monthly real exchange rate conditional volatility (the volatility of deviations from PPP) is of same order to that of conditional volatility of nominal exchange rates. Even in case of a homogenous basket of goods, price differential volatility tends to large.

Aims of Study

The intent of this study is to provide a synthesis of past literature available in connection with PPP as also empirical testing of data and its applicability in determination of real exchange rates in the longer run. The subsequent section will detail the historical origins of PPP along with the rationale for its relevance in determination of exchange rates which is a management function in proprietary trading firms so and such an analysis enables the firm to assume appropriate positions LONG or SHORT in the futures market.

Research Problem and Methodology

The research problem can defined as “whether real-exchange rates converge to purchasing power parity in the long-run or not”.As for the methodology, the study endeavours to probe for empirical evidence in support of the research problem through systematic statistical testing of historical time series data of exchange rates. This study is by its very nature is desk research which involves data collection from published secondary sources of information. Also, since it is endeavoured to probe for empirical evidence to the effect of afore-stated research problem, qualitative data

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