Abegaz Bazezew Endalew
Department of Economics, College of Business and Economics, Bahir Dar University, Bahir Dar, Ethiopia.
PLoS One. 2024 Dec 5;19(12):e0311675. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0311675. eCollection 2024.
Ethiopia has persistently pursued exchange rate devaluations to address its trade deficit and the structure of the economy, a strategy supported by the United Nations and economists. However, the effectiveness of this policy shift has sparked prolonged debate among scholars, exacerbated by divergent findings regarding the effect of exchange rates on trade balances. This study investigates the asymmetric effect of the real exchange rate on Ethiopia's trade balance from 1992 to 2022. Employing the Non-linear Autoregressive Distributed Lag Model (NARDL), the research challenges the prevalent assumption of a linear (symmetric) association between exchange rates and trade balances in Ethiopian studies. Results reveal asymmetric effects of the exchange rate on the trade balance in both the short and long run, suggesting that exchange rate depreciations have varying implications for trade balances compared to appreciations of similar magnitude. Both real exchange rate depreciation and appreciation demonstrate statistically significant and positively asymmetric effects on Ethiopia's trade balance across temporal dimensions. Specifically, a 1% exchange rate depreciation corresponds to a 0.843% and 0.856% improvement in the long-run and short-run trade balance, respectively. Furthermore, a 1% appreciation of the exchange rate is associated with a 15.079% and 15.02% enhancement of the long-run and short-run trade balance, respectively. The study underscores the importance of considering non-linear models of asymmetries in policymaking to inform more effective interventions.
埃塞俄比亚一直推行汇率贬值政策以解决其贸易赤字和经济结构问题，这一战略得到了联合国和经济学家的支持。然而，这一政策转变的有效性在学者中引发了长期争论，关于汇率对贸易平衡影响的不同研究结果更是加剧了这种争论。本研究考察了1992年至2022年实际汇率对埃塞俄比亚贸易平衡的不对称影响。该研究采用非线性自回归分布滞后模型（NARDL），对埃塞俄比亚研究中普遍存在的汇率与贸易平衡之间线性（对称）关联的假设提出了挑战。结果显示，汇率在短期和长期对贸易平衡均存在不对称影响，这表明与同等幅度的升值相比，汇率贬值对贸易平衡的影响有所不同。实际汇率贬值和升值在不同时间维度上对埃塞俄比亚的贸易平衡均表现出具有统计学意义的正向不对称影响。具体而言，汇率贬值1%分别对应长期和短期贸易平衡改善0.843%和0.856%。此外，汇率升值1%分别与长期和短期贸易平衡提高15.079%和15.02%相关。该研究强调了在政策制定中考虑不对称性非线性模型以进行更有效干预的重要性。
