Does Poland Truly Have Full Monetary Independence, As Claimed by the National Bank of Poland?

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Does Poland Truly Have Full Monetary Independence, As Claimed by the National Bank of Poland? Does Poland truly have full monetary independence, as claimed by the National Bank of Poland? An empirical study to determine to what extend Poland has monetary independence, through an analysis of Poland’s floating exchange rate system within the framework of the trilemma. Bachelor thesis Economics and Business Economics and Finance Student: Elmer van Hilten Student number: 10107932 Supervisor: Stan Olijslagers June 26, 2018 Statement of Originality This statement is written by student Elmer van Hilten who declares to take full responsibility for the contents of this document. I declare that the text and the work presented in this document is original and that no sources other than those mentioned in the text and its references have been used in creating it. The faculty of Economics and Business is responsible solely for the supervision of completion of the work, not the contents. 2 Table of contents 1. Introduction 4 2. Literature review 5 2.1 Optimum Currency Area 6 2.2 Benefits and costs 7 3. Methodology and Empirical Analysis 11 3.1.1 Exchange rate system 11 3.1.2 Hamada diagram 12 3.2 Data 13 3.2.1 Data for the exchange rate system 13 3.2.2 Data for the Hamada diagram 14 3.3 Output and analysis 15 3.3.1 Output and analysis of the exchange rate system 15 3.3.2 Results and analysis of the Hamada diagram 18 4. Conclusion 19 5. References 22 6. Appendix 1 27 7. Tables 28 3 1. Introduction With the accession to the European Union in 2004, the success of the Polish 15-year transition from a planned economy to capitalistic system seemed complete (Polański, 2004). An event that initially led to celebrations, turned into scepticism over the course of a couple of years (Coomarasamy, 2016). Poland, the sixth economy of the European Union, was considered the prime example of European integration, but became the exact opposite after the conservative and mildly Eurosceptic Law and Justice Party (PiS) won the elections in 2016. Since, the Polish government has defied the European Union on multiple occasions (C., 2016). Furthermore, the Polish government is not making any progress in adopting the euro. With the signing of the Accession Treaty came also the obligation to, in time, comply to the Maastricht Treaty. In this treaty the convergence criteria are formally defined, after which the euro should be adopted as the single currency: • Price stability, to show inflation is controlled; • Soundness and sustainability of public finances, through limits on government borrowing and national debt to avoid excessive deficit; • Government debt below 60%, or tendency towards that (Belgian clause); • Exchange-rate stability, through participation in the Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM II) for at least two years without strong deviations from the ERM II central rate (15% higher or lower than the central rate); • Long-term interest rates, to assess the durability of the convergence achieved by fulfilling the other criteria. Source: European Commission Despite these convergence criteria, Poland never became part of the ERM II. On the contrary, Poland even discontinued its pegged exchange rate to the euro and US dollar to formally adopt a floating exchange rate (Appendix 1). According to the EU authorities, the floating exchange rate is incompatible with the principles underlying the ERM II (ECB, 2003). Szapáry (2009) concludes in his paper that the economic crisis might alter the willingness of potential eurozone members to adopt the euro. Some countries would consequently expedite the participation to the single currency, whilst others would delay this process. Nevertheless, becoming a member of the eurozone is not just the stated goal of 4 countries’ authorities, but also an obligation under the EU Treaty. In the case of Poland, it would seem they are delaying the process of becoming a member of the eurozone. This process might be supported by statements of the European Union to take Poland’s voting rights in the European Counsil away (Boffey, 2017), and thus pushing Poland on a more nationalistic path. Opinion polls show a trend of declining support for the euro after 2009 (Figure 1). In 2014 a quarter of the Polish were in favor of becoming a member of the eurozone, but in March 2016, an astonishing 65% of the Polish was against joining the eurozone, whilst only 13% was in favor of joining the eurozone as fast as possible (Balcer, Buras, Gromadzki and Smolar, 2017). One of the arguments against becoming a part of the eurozone for Poland, is that the loss of monetary independence would harm the Polish economy (Carlson, Conor, Chan, Cooper, Lehner, Montgomery and Tran, 2016). Asymmetric shocks would not result into interference of the European Central Bank (ECB) and therefore Poland would be limited in its possibilities to counter these shocks (Pilbeam, 2006). In this paper an empirical test shall be done to analyze if the Polish zloty is indeed a floating currency. This shall be done through a regression in line with earlier work done by Bénassy-Quéré and Coeuré (2000) and Ogawa and Shimizu (2005). The hypothesis is that the official floating exchange regime is valid, and therefore Poland has monetary independence according to the trilemma (Figure 2). However, some papers seem to indicate that a floating exchange rate is de facto a fixed one, which is known as the fear of floating. If the latter is the case for Poland, this would question the validity of the claimed monetary independence. Afterwards the situation between the eurozone and Poland shall be illustrated within the Hamada diagram, which is used to show the potential gains from coordination of macroeconomic policies. 2. Literature review Becoming part of a monetary union has potential benefits, as well as costs (Pilbeam, 2006). This paper focusses mainly on the cost of losing monetary independence, but to assess the impact of this loss, the optimum currency area theory (OCA) needs to be discussed. Afterwards, the benefits and costs of adopting a monetary union shall be discussed, whilst analyzing the monetary independence Poland claims to have. 5 2.1.1 Optimum Currency Area In his pioneering work, Mundell (1961) discussed the optimum currency area theory, where he stressed the need for floating exchange rate mechanisms in countries facing asymmetric demand shocks, especially if these countries are unable to adjust otherwise due to wage rigidity and limited labor mobility. Subsequent work by McKinnon (1963) and Kenen (1969) extended this theory, emphasizing the need for openness and product diversification to become an OCA. This theory contains several factors which contribute to answering the question for a country when it is optimal to adopt a common currency and a common monetary policy. If the eurozone is an OCA for Poland, the potential loss of monetary independence would not outweigh the benefits of adopting the euro as a single currency. Pilbeam (2006) summarizes these criteria, whilst leaving the question if the eurozone is an OCA and if other countries should join the European Monetary Union (EMU) unanswered. Furthermore, Pilbeam states that the criteria are by no means conclusive. Multiple authors conclude that the business cycles between Central- and Eastern European countries (CEECs) and the EU (mainly Germany) are increasing, since the CEECs implemented economic reforms. In particular, studies done by Boone and Maurel (1998 and 1999) find a significant convergence between the German business cycles and select CEECs (Slovakia, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Poland) their business cycles. Boone and Maurel (1999) estimate that 55% of the Polish business cycle is explained by German shocks. This figure is admittedly lower than the German-French interdependence of business cycles, which is 91%, but nonetheless higher than the German-Spanish (43%) and the German-Italian (18%) estimates for the interdependence of business cycles. Based on this information, the authors conclude that the benefits of joining the eurozone could eventually be larger than the costs. Fidrmuc (2004) also expects, within the OCA framework, a strong tendency for CEECs to join the Economic Monetary Union (EMU). His paper shows that the business cycles of Hungary, Slovenia and, to a lesser extent, Poland are strongly correlated with the German business cycle since 1993. This means, according to Fidrmuc, that Poland possibly is close to forming an optimum currency area with the EMU and should, therefore, adopt the euro as a single currency. The author does note that the observation period was too short and characterized by too few supply and demand shocks. The author also states that asymmetric shocks are still likely in the EU and the CEECs. In sharp contrast to the previous, Krugman (2013) states that the eurozone is not an OCA, but mainly a political project. Nevertheless, he gives possible solutions to make the 6 eurozone workable, albeit still not making it an OCA; a Europe-wide backing of banks, the ECB should be a lender-of-last-resort to governments and finally, a higher inflation target. Especially the latter point is worth pointing out, since it would sound counter-intuitive to aim for a higher inflation target. The argument Krugman makes is that a higher inflation rate is needed to counter the downward nominal wage rigidity, since devaluation of the currency is not an option. This loss of national macroeconomic policy autonomy is, according to Pilbeam (2006), a major argument against the EMU. Once Poland would become a member of the eurozone, it would lose the autonomy to set its own inflation rate. Currently, the Narodowy Bank Polski (NBP) has set the inflation rate at around 2.5% (NBP, 2017), whilst the ECB aims to keep the inflation rate close to, but below 2% (ECB, 2011). At least in the short term, there is a trade-off between inflation and unemployment, known as the Phillips curve (Friedman, 1977).
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