Exchange rates and exports: evidence from manufacturing firms in the UK

The thesis examines the effect of exchange rate variability on firms' export decisions, using data for UK manufacturing firms. We separately investigate the relationship between the changes of level of exchange rate and exports and that between exchange rate uncertainty and exports. Our results...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Zhang, Xufei
Format: Thesis (University of Nottingham only)
Language:English
Published: 2008
Subjects:
Online Access:https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/28227/
_version_ 1848793529347735552
author Zhang, Xufei
author_facet Zhang, Xufei
author_sort Zhang, Xufei
building Nottingham Research Data Repository
collection Online Access
description The thesis examines the effect of exchange rate variability on firms' export decisions, using data for UK manufacturing firms. We separately investigate the relationship between the changes of level of exchange rate and exports and that between exchange rate uncertainty and exports. Our results show that export extensive margin is not significantly related to changes in the level of exchange rates, whereas exchange rates have a significant and negative impact on the export intensity. Since industry heterogeneity is important in the effect of exchange rate level changes, we further explore possible explanations. In particular, we test whether external orientation and market structure play a role in the effect. Our results provide significant evidence for the role of external orientation and market structure. We also find significant evidence for the hysteresis effect of exchange rate uncertainty on exports, using new measures of uncertainty. In both cases, the behaviour of multinationals is investigated. We find that multinationals are less likely to be negatively affected by both changes of level of exchange rate and exchange rate uncertainty than indigenous firms. It contributes to the micro econometric literature in several aspects. Our evidence for industry heterogeneity from UK firm level data is new. Our explanations for industry heterogeneity by testing two hypotheses are the first attempt to investigate the factors driving different effects across industries. New measures of exchange rate uncertainty and related new method are used to test the hypothesis of hysteresis effects of uncertainty on trade. The use of micro data and new measures enable us to overcome the econometric difficulties and problems in previous studies. We also investigate whether multinationals' export behaviour is different from that of indigenous firms in response to exchange rate fluctuations. As far as we know, the multinationals' ability to deal with currency risk has never been examined before. The thesis provides new evidence for the multinationals' advantage of internalising currency risk over indigenous firms under exchange rate movements.
first_indexed 2025-11-14T19:01:45Z
format Thesis (University of Nottingham only)
id nottingham-28227
institution University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus
institution_category Local University
language English
last_indexed 2025-11-14T19:01:45Z
publishDate 2008
recordtype eprints
repository_type Digital Repository
spelling nottingham-282272025-02-28T11:33:10Z https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/28227/ Exchange rates and exports: evidence from manufacturing firms in the UK Zhang, Xufei The thesis examines the effect of exchange rate variability on firms' export decisions, using data for UK manufacturing firms. We separately investigate the relationship between the changes of level of exchange rate and exports and that between exchange rate uncertainty and exports. Our results show that export extensive margin is not significantly related to changes in the level of exchange rates, whereas exchange rates have a significant and negative impact on the export intensity. Since industry heterogeneity is important in the effect of exchange rate level changes, we further explore possible explanations. In particular, we test whether external orientation and market structure play a role in the effect. Our results provide significant evidence for the role of external orientation and market structure. We also find significant evidence for the hysteresis effect of exchange rate uncertainty on exports, using new measures of uncertainty. In both cases, the behaviour of multinationals is investigated. We find that multinationals are less likely to be negatively affected by both changes of level of exchange rate and exchange rate uncertainty than indigenous firms. It contributes to the micro econometric literature in several aspects. Our evidence for industry heterogeneity from UK firm level data is new. Our explanations for industry heterogeneity by testing two hypotheses are the first attempt to investigate the factors driving different effects across industries. New measures of exchange rate uncertainty and related new method are used to test the hypothesis of hysteresis effects of uncertainty on trade. The use of micro data and new measures enable us to overcome the econometric difficulties and problems in previous studies. We also investigate whether multinationals' export behaviour is different from that of indigenous firms in response to exchange rate fluctuations. As far as we know, the multinationals' ability to deal with currency risk has never been examined before. The thesis provides new evidence for the multinationals' advantage of internalising currency risk over indigenous firms under exchange rate movements. 2008 Thesis (University of Nottingham only) NonPeerReviewed application/pdf en arr https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/28227/1/478999.pdf Zhang, Xufei (2008) Exchange rates and exports: evidence from manufacturing firms in the UK. PhD thesis, University of Nottingham. Foreign exchange rates exports Great Britain
spellingShingle Foreign exchange rates
exports
Great Britain
Zhang, Xufei
Exchange rates and exports: evidence from manufacturing firms in the UK
title Exchange rates and exports: evidence from manufacturing firms in the UK
title_full Exchange rates and exports: evidence from manufacturing firms in the UK
title_fullStr Exchange rates and exports: evidence from manufacturing firms in the UK
title_full_unstemmed Exchange rates and exports: evidence from manufacturing firms in the UK
title_short Exchange rates and exports: evidence from manufacturing firms in the UK
title_sort exchange rates and exports: evidence from manufacturing firms in the uk
topic Foreign exchange rates
exports
Great Britain
url https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/28227/