Title: Are reserve holdings in emerging Asian countries excessive? - The intertemporal balance perspective

Authors: Ho-Don Yan; Ching-Chuan Tsong

Addresses: Department of Economics, Feng Chia University, 100 Wen Hwa Rd., Taichung, Taiwan ' Department of Economics, National Chi Nan University, Nantou 545, Taiwan

Abstract: Under the assumption of intertemporal balance, current foreign reserve holdings should equal the present value of the sum of future current account and financial account balances. To satisfy the intertemporal balance, a testable condition indicates that the change in foreign reserves needs to follow a stationary path. We employ variant unit root tests on nine Asian emerging markets for the time period of 1989.1 to 2008.12. The univariate unit root test shows that most countries have violated the intertemporal balance due to accumulating excessive reserves, while for the time period up to 1997.6, prior to the Asian currency crises, most countries deviated from the sustainable path due to deficient reserve holdings. However, results from the panel unit root test, which particularly considers the cross country correlation, show that except for China not being on a sustainable path, the other countries do not violate the intertemporal balance. The disparate results between univariate and panel unit root tests indicate interdependence among Asian emerging markets in the era of financial globalisation and vindicate the advantages from regional financial cooperation.

Keywords: foreign reserves; reserve holding adequacy; external short-term debt; balance of payments; BOP; intertemporal balance; unit root test; Asia; emerging markets; market interdependence; financial globalisation; regional financial cooperation; regional cooperation.

DOI: 10.1504/IJEBR.2013.056127

International Journal of Economics and Business Research, 2013 Vol.6 No.3, pp.304 - 323

Published online: 30 Dec 2013 *

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