This paper presents evidence on whether Hong Kong's currency board arrangement, in place since 1983, has affected the volatility of real macroeconomic variables. Simple evidence on the relative volatilities of relevant macroeconomic variables, pre and post, 1983 is presented, before a more...

This paper estimates the demand for the Hong Kong currency circulating in the Guangdong Province of China and Macau. The amount of Hong Kong Dollar circulating in the Guangdong (Macau) region is reckoned to be 7.4 (3.2) per cent of the total amount issued in Hong Kong. The estimated coefficients...

This paper studies the relation between the complexity of global banking organizations and their foreign banking operations (FBOs) in Hong Kong. Our empirical evidence indicates that the complexity of the parent company has significant effects on their Hong Kong branch's business model,...

The complex nature of an overall banking group could potentially affect the riskiness of their affiliates through various channels, such as agency costs and diversification gains. This paper empirically investigates the effects of bank complexity of the global banks (in terms of their business...

This paper presents estimates of exchange rate pass-through derived from a panel of very disaggregated import unit-values to Hong Kong. The estimation approach builds on that utilized by Knetter (1989, 1993) to study export pricing and pricing to market. The three-dimensional data set examined...

Inflation in a country with a currency board is usually believed to be highly dependent on external factors. Important questions for understanding the dynamics of inflation are (i) how best to measure these factors and (ii) how to model the transmission mechanism. This paper brings evidence to...

In the mid-1960s two major institutional changes decreased the freedom for competition among banks in Hong Kong. In 1964, in response to a supposed 'interest rate war' the Exchange Banks Association (the precursor to the Hong Kong Association of Banks) was able to negotiate an Interest Rate...

This paper provides a theoretical model of an open economy credit channel including currency mismatch and financial fragility where exporting firms have access to international credit but non-exporting firms do not. It considers the post-crisis outcome which is predicted to be dramatically...

Prior to the late 1990s, low unemployment was a standard feature of macroeconomic life in Hong Kong. Between 1985 and 1997, the unemployment rate averaged 2.5 percent. But the picture changed dramatically thereafter with the unemployment rate rising to 6.2 percent by 1999 and remaining above 5...

This paper examines competition among commercial banks following deregulation in a small open economy. I jointly estimate a system of differentiated product demand and pricing equations, and use conduct parameters to identify market structure. The empirical results show that the banking sector...