ECON340 Study Guide - Final Guide: Deadweight Loss, U.S. Route 3

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harlequinraven529

27 Jun 2018

School

University of Delaware

Department

Economics

Course

ECON340

Professor

David Black

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CHAPTER 17 #8

You have access to 3 spot exchange rates: $0.01/yen ; $0.20/krone ; 25 yen/krone

You start with dollars and want to end up with dollars

a) How would you engage in arbitrage to profit from these 3 rates? What is the profit for

each dollar used initially?

● Rate is too high between yen and krone relative to the dollar-foreign exchange rates

● In a profitable triangle arbitrage, you want to sell krones at the higher rate

● The arbitrage will be:

○ use dollars to buy krone @ $0.20/krone

○ Use these krone to buy yen at 25 yen/krone

○ Use the yen to buy dollars at $0.01/yen

● For each dollar that you sell initially, you can obtain 5 krone ; these 5 krone can obtain

125 yen and the 125 yen can obtain $1.25

● Arbitrage profit for dollar is therefore 25 cents

b) As a result of this arbitrage, what is the pressure on the cross-rate between yen and

krone? What must the value of the cross-rate be to eliminate the opportunity for

triangular arbitrage?

● Selling krone to buy yen will put downward pressure on the yen price of the krone

● When this exchange rate falls to 20 yen per krone the profit from arbitrage is 0

CHAPTER 16 #8

a) Calculate the Goods and Services Balance (Trade Balance)

Merchandise exports + 330

Merchandise imports - 198

Service exports + 196

Service imports - 204

+124

b) Current Account Balance

Goods and Services Balance +124

Income Flows +3

Unilateral Transfers -8

+119

c) Private Financial Account Balance

Increase in domestic holding of foreign assets (lending) -202

Increase in foreign holding of domestic assets (borrowing) +102

-100

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Document Summary

You have access to 3 spot exchange rates: sh. 01/yen ; sh. 20/krone ; 25 yen/krone. Rate is too high between yen and krone relative to the dollar-foreign exchange rates. In a profitable triangle arbitrage, you want to sell krones at the higher rate. Use dollars to buy krone @ sh. 20/krone. Use these krone to buy yen at 25 yen/krone. Use the yen to buy dollars at sh. 01/yen. For each dollar that you sell initially, you can obtain 5 krone ; these 5 krone can obtain. 125 yen and the 125 yen can obtain . 25. Selling krone to buy yen will put downward pressure on the yen price of the krone. When this exchange rate falls to 20 yen per krone the profit from arbitrage is 0. Chapter 16 #8: calculate the goods and services balance (trade balance) Increase in domestic holding of foreign assets (lending) Increase in foreign holding of domestic assets (borrowing) +102.

Related Questions

Please read the passage and answer the questions below.

During the first half of the 2000s, the Japanese yen was relatively weak against the U.S. dollar. This was a boon for Japanâs export-led economy. On January 1, 2008, it took 122 yen to buy one U.S. dollar. For the next four years, the yen strengthened relentlessly against the dollar, hitting a record high of Â¥75.31 to the dollar on October 31, 2011. The reasons for the rise of the yen were complex and had little to do with the strength of the Japanese economy because there has been very little of that in evidence. The weakness of the yen during the early to mid-2000s was due to the so-called carry trade. This financial strategy involved borrowing in Japanese yen, where interest rates were close to zero, and investing the loans in higher-yielding assets, typically U.S. Treasury bills, which carried interest rates 3 to 4 percentage points greater. Investors made profits from the interest rate differential. At its peak, financial institutions had more than a trillion dollars invested in the carry trade. Because the strategy involved selling borrowed yen to purchase dollar-denominated assets, it drove the value of the yen lower. The interest rate differential existed because the Japanese economy was weak, prices were falling, and the Bank of Japan had been lowering interest rates in an attempt to boost growth and get Japan out of a dangerous deflationary cycle. When the global financial crisis hit in 2008 and 2009, the Federal Reserve in the United States responded by injecting liquidity into battered financial markets, effectively lowering U.S. interest rates on U.S. Treasury bonds. As these fell, the interest rate differential between Japanese and U.S. assets narrowed sharply, and the carry trade became unprofitable. Financial institutions unwound their positions, selling dollar-denominated assets, and buying yen to pay back their original loans. The increased demand drove up the value of the yen. For Japanese exporters, the 40 percent increase in the value of the yen against the dollar (and the euro) between early 2008 and 2012 was a painful experience. A strong yen hurts the price competitiveness of Japanese exports and reduces the value of profits earned overseas when translated back into yen. Take Toyota as an example: In February 2012, the company stated that its profit for the year ending March 31, 2012, would be about Â¥200 billion, 51 percent lower than in the prior year. Toyota makes nearly half of the cars it sells globally at its Japanese plants, so it has been particularly hard hit by a rise in the value of the yen. In late 2012, things started to change when the pro-business Liberal Democratic Party won national elections and Shinzo Abe was appointed prime minister. Abe had campaigned on a platform that included taking actions to weaken the value of the yen to help Japanâs exporters. Even before the election, Japanâs central bank had accelerated purchases of government securities, thereby expanding the money supply, and had agreed to a higher inflation target. Under Abeâs leadership, this policy had explicit government support. One consequence of the policy was to reduce the value of the yen against other currencies. Indeed, between October 2012 and December 2013, the yen lost more than 25 percent of its value against the U.S. dollar. The yen was trading at Â¥104 to the U.S. dollar in late December 2013. While this helped Japanâs exporters, the policy was criticized by other major industrial nations as a unilateral action that came dangerously close to precipitating a currency war.

1. Who in Japan benefits from the devaluation of the yen? Who does this hurt in Japan?

2. What does this case teach you about the way foreign exchange markets work?

harlequindolphin819

1. In which market will a company arrange to receive currency for a transaction at a future date?

Select one:

a. the forward market

b. the currency futures market

c. the arbitrage market

d. the forward spot market

2. The U.S. dollar is overvalued and the peso is undervalued in the foreign exchange market

Select one:

a. if a visitor to Mexico from the United States can buy more goods in the United States
than he can buy in Mexico when he converts dollars to pesos.

b. if a visitor to Mexico from the United States can buy the same amount of goods in
Mexico as he can buy in the United States when he converts dollars to pesos.

c. if a visitor to Mexico from the United States can buy more goods in Mexico than he can
buy in the United States when he converts pesos to dollars.

d. if a visitor to Mexico from the United States can buy more goods in Mexico than he can
buy in the United States when he converts dollars to pesos.

3. Given the following data (t is current time; t+1 is time after one period)

E_t = Â¥ 110 = $1

E_t+1 = Â¥ 95 = $1

Current Interest rate in the US = i_US= 8%

If the interest parity condition is expected to hold, interest rates in Japan (i_Japan) should equal approximately:

Select one:

a. 3.38%

b. 8%

c. -5.64%

d. None of the above.

4. Suppose the Japanese interest rate is I% while the interest rate in Britain is 3%. Interest rate parity predicts that relative to the Japanese Yen,

Select one:

a. the British pound will depreciate by 4%.

b. the British pound will appreciate by 2%.

c. the British pound will depreciate by 2%.

d. the British pound will appreciate by 4%.

5. Suppose the U.S. grows more slowly than Canada. The best medium term prediction is that the

Select one:

a. U.S. interest rates will rise.

b. U.S. dollar will appreciate against the Canadian dollar.

c. U.S. dollar will depreciate against the Canadian dollar.

6. Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) implies that

Select one:

a. In the long run, a forward exchange rate can purchase an interest rate swap for the same
price as the spot rate.

b. In the medium run, a forward exchange rate can purchase an interest rate swap for the
same price as the spot rate.

c. The short run, a given amount of money can buy the same amount of goods, whether
they are purchased at home or abroad.

d. the long run, a given amount of money can buy the same amount of goods, whether
they are purchased at home or abroad.

7. The current account balance will fall if

Select one:

a. the real exchange rate depreciates and disposable income goes up

b. the real exchange rate appreciates or disposable income goes up

c. the real exchange rate depreciates or disposable income goes down

d. the real exchange rate appreciates and disposable income goes down

8. A person who paid $10 for an umbrella in the U.S. sees the exact same umbrella in a store in London, England for 6 British pounds. If the person could expect the real exchange rate to be 1 U.S. umbrella per 1 English umbrella, then the person could infer that the nominal exchange rate is

Select one:

a. 0.6 U.S. dollars per 1 English pound.

b. 1.67 U.S. dollars per 1 English pound.

c. 0.6 English pounds per I U.S. dollar.

d. 1.67 English pounds per 1 U.S. dollar.

9. A U.S. wine merchant travelling in France has found a French wine of the same quality as a U.S. wine they regularly sell. She assumes that the real exchange rate should be 1 case of U.S. wine equals one case of French wine. The French wine merchant will sell her a case of the French wine for 350 euros. She knows that a case of the equivalent U.S. wine sells for $400. The euro is selling in France for $1.20. Assuming transportation costs are zero, the U.S. wine merchant should

Select one:

a. buy the French wine and sell it in the U.S. and make a profit.

b. buy the U.S. wine and sell it in France and make a profit.

c. It doesn't matter either way; there is no profit in the deal.

d. None of the above.

10. In a fixed exchange rate system, how do countries address the problem of currency market pressures that threaten to lower or raise the value of their currency?

Select one:

a. If demand falls, then countries must increase demand by buying up the excess supply
with domestic currency.

b. If demand rises, countries must fill the excess demand for foreign currency by selling
their reserves.

c. If demand rises, then countries can adjust the value of the exchange rate to the desired
level.

d. A and B only.

Please no cursive or typed out

1. (65 points total).

a) (5 points) Fill in the Table below.

Number of workers	Units of output	MPN
0	0
1	20
2	38
3	53
4	66
5	77
6	86
7	93

b. (10 points) Define the marginal product of labor and explain how it relates to the production function (with N on horizontal axis and Y on vertical axis). What shape does a production function typically take and why? Does this production function take the 'typical' shape?

c)(5 points) Assume that you sell your output to Europe for a US price = $10. The exchange rate is this time is $1.07 per Euro. What is the price of your product in Euros? Please round to 2 decimal places.

d) (5 points) You can hire all the workers you want at $80 per worker. Along with the US price = $10, calculate the number of workers that you will hire and the associated profit in REAL terms (as we did in class, we 'assume away' all other costs of production). Please give me the marginal REAL profit of each worker hired and then add them up and that is the total profit in real terms.

e)(5 points) Inflation data in the US is weaker than the Fed would like and thus, expectations change such that the Fed is less likely to raise interest rates. As a result, the new and updated exchange rate is $1.23 per Euro. What has happened to the value of the US dollar and what is the new Euro price of your product, assuming that your American price stays at $10?

f).(5 points) Given the change in conditions you decide to raise the price of your product in US dollar terms so that the Euro price stays the same as it was before the change in the exchange rate (part c above). What is the new US dollar price? Please show all work.

g) (10 points) What has happened to the marginal revenue product (MRPN) for each worker (has it gone up or down?) and why given the change in price? Be sure to define what the marginal revenue product is and what it means in 'laypersons' terms.

h) (10 points) Given that the US$ price of your product has changed, explain how and why you would change your behavior. Please provide the intuition beginning your answer with... at the same level of labor input I am no longer ......... (please be as specific as possible). Again, explain in REAL terms, not nominal terms.

i. (5 points) Calculate the new level of profits in REAL terms given the change in condition including the change in the exchange rate, the change in the US $ price of your product. and the change in your behavior.

j)(5 points) The Fed has had its eye on inflation for a long time and have been disappointed in that inflation has been too low. Is the change in the value the dollar vs the Euro a welcome development for the Fed? Why or why not? Assume that these conditions changed in a similar way for many US firms.

ECON340 Study Guide - Final Guide: Deadweight Loss, U.S. Route 3

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