Price Convergence Through a Financial Network: Does Financial Integration Impact Price Integration in Real Sectors?
Price Convergence Through a Financial Network: Does Financial Integration Impact Price Integration in Real Sectors?
How does financial integration impact price integration in real sectors? Using newly hand-collected data from a domestic exchange market during the Chinese Civil War (1945-1949), Zhihao Xu of UCLA Economics models the connection between these two integrations measured respectively by capital flow costs (or domestic exchange rates) and commodity relative prices across cities. He uses battle shocks to a financial hub in the exchange network to identify the impact of exchange rates on price convergence between a city pair connected to the hub. He finds that (1) city pairs with a direct domestic exchange link exhibited faster commodity price convergence than others; (2) battles around financial hubs tended to raise capital flow costs between a connected city pair, decelerating price convergence by 4% – 8%; (3) a weak form of purchasing power parity holds: a 1% depreciation in the domestic exchange rates was associated with a 0.2% – 0.3% reduction in inflation rate differentials; and (4) a higher inflation rate did not impede or strengthen the price convergence channel via domestic exchanges. These results imply that China’s financial development was more sophisticated than expected relative to its status as an agricultural economy in the early 20th century.
Chair: Professor Debin Ma (Institute of Economic Research, Hitotsubashi University), Co-Director of the International Society for Quantitative History
Live on Zoom on June 17, 2021
15:00 Hong Kong/Beijing/Singapore
00:00 Los Angeles | 08:00 London | 16:00 Tokyo | 17:00 Sydney
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The Quantitative History Webinar Series, convened by Professor Zhiwu Chen and Dr. Chicheng Ma of The University of Hong Kong (HKU), aims to provide researchers, teachers and students with an online intellectual platform to keep up to date with the latest research in the field, promoting the dissemination of research findings and interdisciplinary use of quantitative methods in historical research. The Series is co-organized by the International Society for Quantitative History, HKU Business School, and the Asia Global Institute (AGI).
Conveners:
Professor Zhiwu Chen
Dr. Chicheng Ma
