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The purpose of this paper is to examine whether real exchange rate devaluation improves the current account balance of four highly indebted low-income countries of East Africa.

The pooled mean group (PMG) approach is used for panel data from four countries over the period 1970–2016. The paper also applied bound testing and ARDL model for time-series data from individual sample countries.

The panel PMG/ARDL estimation result reveals that real exchange rate devaluation has no significant impact on the current account balance, both in the short and long run. However, the time-series analysis using the bound testing and restricted ARDL estimation suggests that real exchange rate devaluation improves the current account balance in the long run for only Ethiopia. The overall empirical results reveal that the current account balance would improve with the rising domestic income while it deteriorates with increasing foreign income and external indebtedness in the long run.

The paper is original.

In the context of debate on competitive devaluation and trade imbalances, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the role of exchange rate misalignment as a determinant of trade imbalances in selected major trade surplus (Germany, China, Japan, Russia and KSA) and major trade deficit countries (USA, UK, France, India and Turkey).

The authors used a structural vector auto-regressive model on data from ten countries with the highest trade deficit and surplus. The period of analysis is from 2000 Q1 to 2016 Q1.

The key findings suggest that although exchange rate misalignment from equilibrium may have some implications for the current account balance for surplus and deficit countries, the effects observed were rather very mild and transitory. There was a heterogeneity in the response of the current account position to exchange rate misalignment in each country, concomitantly; the exchange rate misalignment shall not be seen as the sole responsible factor in the debate on global trade imbalances.

The research has profound implications in terms of exploring the notion of competitive devaluation and exchange rate misalignment as a cause of major global trade imbalances.

This study has important practical implications for the trade policy of major economies in the world. These are twofold. First, this study has analysed and reported on the degree of misalignment of exchange from its equilibrium values in the major trade surplus and deficit countries. Second, it has investigated the implications of any misalignment for the trade balance or respective economies.

There are important social implications as the notion of competitive devaluation and exchange rate–trade balance nexus has been heavily politicised. This study provides an empirical insight and an answer to these claims which have social and political implications.

There is a significant element of originality and contribution to the existing body of knowledge on the subject. In the context of debate on competitive devaluation this is the first study which has investigated whether the exchange rate has been misaligned from its equilibrium values (competitive devaluation) and whether there is some nexus between the real exchange rate misalignment and trade imbalances in under-analysis economies.

Operating exposure to foreign exchange risk and exchange rate pass-through are investigated in the context of a Cournot model of equilibrium in a homogeneous product market, i.e. an industry populated by N firms, which compete exclusively on the basis of quantities produced/marketed and where each firm optimizes its decision based on expectations regarding the actions of its rivals that in fact eventuate. Whereas one firm sources its product domestically, the remaining N−1 firms source their product in a foreign country. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

By invoking two simplifying assumptions, namely, constant marginal cost functions and a linear inverted demand curve, and then deriving the Cournot equilibrium, this paper obtains clear implications regarding the effect of a currency devaluation on the competitive positions of the industry’s N constituent firms as well as the pass-through effect on the industry price.

The N−1 firms that source the homogeneous product from a foreign country, which experiences a devaluation, gain, while the single competing firm that sources domestically loses, both market share and profit. Formulas are derived which elucidate this intuitive result. The extent of exchange rate pass-through on the resulting equilibrium price is gauged to be incomplete, consistent with extant empirical evidence. As the number of firms increases, the extent of exchange rate pass-through likewise increases, approaching a limiting situation of complete pass-through.

This paper is the first to examine the issues of exchange rate operating exposure and pass-through in the context of a Cournot model of competition, under the indicated two simplifying assumptions.

The Marshall‐Lerner (M‐L) condition, which stipulates that a devaluation or depreciation of its currency will improve a country's trade balance only if the sum of the absolute values of a country's import and export price elasticities are greater than one, is a fundamental tenet of international economics. The purpose of this study is to survey the literature that has tested the M‐L condition, examining in particular whether previous studies' results are statistically significant. The authors then conduct their own estimation of 29 countries' trade elasticities, over the past few decades.

While mostly a review paper, the paper also applies statistical techniques in two ways. First, the authors use t‐tests on previously‐published statistical results to see if the sums of their elasticities are significantly greater than one. The authors also apply the recently developed ARDL cointegration method, which has a number of attractive statistical properties, to estimate 29 countries' long‐run import and export elasticities and test the M‐L condition using recent data.

The authors re‐estimation using previous studies' coefficients and standard errors shows that, although the point estimates in many studies suggest that the M‐L condition is met, it really is not met in half of the cases. This lack of evidence is confirmed with the authors' own empirical tests.

Not only does this paper collect the relevant literature in a way that will assist future researchers on the topic, these findings suggest that support for the M‐L condition is much weaker that commonly thought. This therefore makes an important contribution to thinking regarding the potential benefits of devaluation, and to economic theory in general.

Policymakers who hope to improve their countries' competitive position could benefit from learning that this policy is indeed less effective than might be supposed. This could lead to the implementation of more effective economic policies.

As a literature review, the originality of this paper is that it collects relevant studies into one single paper. The statistical analyses allow the reader to re‐interpret these studies' findings in a new light.

The role of money and monetary policy of the central bank in pursuing macroeconomic stability has significantly changed over the period since the end of World War II. Globalization, liberalization, integration, and transition processes generally shaped the crucial milestones of the macroeconomic development and substantial features of economic policy and its framework in Europe. Policy-driven changes together with variety of exogenous shocks significantly affected the key features of macroeconomic environment on the European continent that fashioned the framework and design of monetary policies.

This chapter examines the key basis of the central bank’s monetary policy on its way to pursue and preserve the internal and external stability of the purchasing power of money. Substantial elements of the monetary policy like objectives and strategies are not only generally introduced but also critically discussed according to their accuracy, suitability, and reliability in the changing macroeconomic conditions. Brief overview of the Eurozone common monetary policy milestones and the past Eastern bloc countries’ experience with a variety of exchange rate regimes provides interesting empirical evidence on origins and implications of vital changes in the monetary policy conduction in Europe and the Eurozone.

This chapter investigates the nature of the transformation of macroeconomics by focusing on the impact of the Great Depression on economic doctrines. There is no doubt that the Great Depression exerted an enormous influence on economic thought, but the exact nature of its impact should be examined more carefully. In this chapter, I examine the transformation from a perspective which emphasizes the interaction between economic ideas and economic events, and the interaction between theory and policy rather than the development of economic theory. More specifically, I examine the evolution of what became known as macroeconomics after the Depression in terms of an ongoing debate among the “stabilizers” and their critics. I further suggest using four perspectives, or schools of thought, as measures to locate the evolution and transformation; the gold standard mentality, liquidationism, the Treasury view, and the real-bills doctrine. By highlighting these four economic ideas, I argue that what happened during the Great Depression was the retreat of the gold standard mentality, the complete demise of liquidationism and the Treasury view, and the strange survival of the real-bills doctrine. Each of those transformations happened not in response to internal debates in the discipline, but in response to government policies and real-world events.