MGEC61 Assignment 1 (Winter 2022) 1
MGEC61 – LEC 01 & LEC 02
International Economic: Finance
Assignment 1
Due: On or before Friday, February 11, 2022, 5:00pm, Toronto Time, Crowdmark
(Note: Assignment submitted after 5:00pm on February 11 WILL NOT BE accepted under
ANY circumstance.)

Instructions:
• You can submit an individual or group assignment. If you submit a group assignment,
there must be no more than THREE students in your group and your group members
can come from different lectures/sections of the course.
• Label your graph; otherwise, marks will be subtracted.
• Do not write E/q/Ee increases/decreases (/) in your answer, you have to answer
whether the currency appreciates/depreciates. POINTS WILL BE SUBTRACTED IF
YOU DO NOT FOLLOW THIS INSTRUCTION.
• No credit will be given if you do not show your work.
• Your answer should be structured in a way such that those know little about economics
will have no difficulty in understanding your argument/answer.
• DO NOT USE any notations that are not used in lectures. If you use your own notations
and/or abbreviations that are not being used in lectures, you will receive a grade of zero
for that question.
• Total marks: 100 points.

MGEC61 Assignment 1 (Winter 2022) 2
Question 1 (20 points)
The world consists of three countries, Alpha, Beta, and Gamma. The table below provides some
macroeconomic data for these three countries. Additional information about these countries:

• Households in all three countries consume 56% of output.
• The government of Alpha collects one-third of total income as taxes, and it runs a budget
surplus of 450.
• Alpha’s sales of goods and services abroad represent 30% of its output, and half of the sales
goes to Beta. It also runs a balanced balance of payments.
• In Beta, the government runs budget deficit of 280 while the central bank depletes its holding
of foreign assets by 428.
• Beta has a current account deficit of 60 with Alpha.
• The levels of financial assets purchased by the residents of Beta from Alpha and Gamma reach
545 and 1000 respectively.
• Beta’s residents receive asset transfers of 75 and 50 from residents of Alpha and Gamma
respectively. No market transactions are involved in these transfers. In addition, these are the
only asset transfers among these three countries.
• Gamma country allocates 17% of its output to build up (physical) capital stock.
• Gamma runs a balanced trade with Alpha, and its stock of official reserves increases by 428.
• Gamma’s residents sell 375 worth of financial assets to Alpha’s residents.
• The central banks of all three countries do not make any transaction with the private sector. In
other words, the central banks only make transactions with other countries’ monetary
authorities.

Alpha Beta Gamma
Gross domestic product, GDP 9000 8500
Consumption, C 5600
Investment, I
Government spending, G 4400
Taxes, T
Exports of goods and services, EX
Imports of goods and services, IM 4163
Private saving, SP 2830
Public saving, SG
National saving, S
Net unilateral transfer 0 0 0
Current account, CA – 1445
Sales of country’s financial assets to foreign
residents
1973
Purchases of foreign financial assets by
domestic residents

Official reserve transactions, ORT
Financial account, KA 15
Capital account

MGEC61 Assignment 1 (Winter 2022) 3
Complete the above table. No explanation requires for this part of the question; however, you
should understand the logic behind so that you could work on similar questions in the future.

Note: The table is reprinted on page 6 of this assignment. You MUST submit that page with your
assignment for grading; otherwise, you will be receiving a grade of zero for this question.

Question 2 (20 points)
Suppose you are working for a large, international investment bank, and you observe the annual
interest rate on the German corporate bonds and the British corporate bonds are 1.25% and 2.4%
respectively. In addition, the current (spot) €/£ exchange rate is 1.1900, and the euro is traded at
a forward premium of 1.15% against the British pound.
Note: Assume your bank does not have any funds denominated in both currencies.

a) Is there is an arbitrage opportunity? Yes/No, explain. (4 points)
b) Now, suppose the interest rate on the German corporate bonds increases by 35 basis points.
What would you do? Explain. (5 points)
c) (Continued from part b) Suppose your firm can move the markets (i.e., change the spot
exchange rate, the forward exchange rate, and the corporate bond yields in both countries),
what happens to these four variables after the transactions you carried in part (a)? Explain in
words. (8 points)
d) (Continued from part b) Fine the annualized forward premium/discount on the British pound
such that your bank will be indifferent between holding the German corporate bonds and the
British corporate bonds. (3 points)

Note:
1) Quote the exchange rates as E€/£ and F€/£.
2) Interest rates are expressed in decimal points (i.e., if R = 0.1, then R = 10%).
3) Use the approximate form of covered interest rate parity.
4) Instead of the assumption made in class (individuals are small players and cannot affect the
exchange rates and interest rates), the investment bank in this question is a LARGE player that
has the ability to change the exchange rates and the corporate bond interest rates when it carries
transactions in the spot exchange market, the forward exchange market, and corporate bonds
markets in Germany and Britain.
5) Use the subscripts “G” and “B” to represent all the variables and terms used for Germany and
Britain respectively in your written explanation. You must use these notations; otherwise, you
will receive a grade of ZERO for the whole question.

Question 3 (20 points)
Suppose the DC/FC exchange rate (EDC/FC) is determined by the asset approach to the exchange
rate.

Home Foreign
Money demand L(R, Y) = 0.15Y – 5000R L*(R*, Y*) = 0.2Y* – 4000R*
Money supply MS = 75000 MS* = 76800
• Note: Interest rates are expressed in decimal forms (i.e., if R = 0.05, then R = 5%). Keep
your answer to 4 decimal places if needed.
MGEC61 Assignment 1 (Winter 2022) 4

The long-run level of output in Home is 45000, which is 5000 units less than output in Foreign.
Both economies have the same (long-run) level of nominal interest rate, which is 10%.

a) Find the initial long-run equilibrium level of exchange rate if the (initial) expected DC/FC
exchange rate is given by the ratio of domestic price level to foreign price level. (6 points)

Recently, there are permanent changes in the domestic money market. Domestic money holders
increase the fraction of income held in the form of money increases by 2 percentage points. At
the same time, the central bank of Home lowers its volume of open market purchases and the level
of money supply changes by 4%. When the market revises their expectations, the expected change
rate (Ee) would change by 0.242 DC per FC. (You need to decide the new levels of money supply
and expected exchange rate).
b) Find the short-run equilibrium levels of interest rate in both countries and the DC/FC exchange
rate. (8 points)
c) Suppose there is a change in monetary policy such that the central bank of Home wants to keep
the short-run exchange rate at 1.5500 via a temporary change in money supply. Can the central
bank achieve this goal? Explain. (6 points)

Question 4 (20 points)
Consider two small open economies, Home and Foreign, and the DC/FC exchange rate is
determined by the asset approach to the exchange rate.

a) “When foreign money holders hold a larger portion of their income in the form of money, there
will be an overshooting of domestic currency.” True/False/Uncertain, explain with the aid of
ONE foreign exchange market diagram.
Note: Only the first diagram will be graded and compare your answer to initial equilibrium.
(15 points)
b) Suppose a country’s financial account depends on the interest rate differentials between DC
denominated assets and FC denominated assets. Based on your answer in part (a), explain
what happens to Home’s financial account balance in both short run and long run (i.e., a debit
or credit entry). Compare your answer to the initial equilibrium and you can assume the
financial account is in balanced in the initial equilibrium. (5 points)

Note:
• Quote exchange rate as EDC/FC.
• DO NOT write “let Foreign be the home country and its currency be DC” and start your
analysis; otherwise, you will receive a grade of ZERO for the whole question.


MGEC61 Assignment 1 (Winter 2022) 5
Question 5 (20 points)
This question is related to the article "Questions on inflation, jobs and housing reveal U.S. concerns
on Canadian recovery" from the CBC New, October 8, 2021.

Source: Pittis D. (2021) "Questions on inflation, jobs and housing reveal U.S. concerns on
Canadian recovery", CBC New, October 8. Available at https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/boc-
us-concerns-column-don-pittis-1.6203452 (Accessed: December 28, 2021)

Note:
1) Use your own words; DO NOT PLAGIARIZE from the article.
2) Type and print your answer (i.e., hand-written answer will NOT be accepted).
3) Use full sentences (not point forms and abbreviation) to answer this question.
4) Quote the exchange rate as EC$/US$.
Failure to do one of the above might result in a grade of ZERO for the whole question.

a) The article mentioned that Tiff Macklem, our current Governor of the Bank of Canada, worried
about the country’s inflation rate might last longer than expected and the job recovery might
be slower than he hoped. Mr. ABC believe Governor Macklem’s views could weaken the
Canadian dollar in the short run.
In the context of the asset approach to the exchange rate, explain why Mr ABC’s belief is
correct and support your answer by ONE well-labelled diagram for the asset approach to the
exchange rate (the one with both domestic money market & foreign exchange market). (10
points)
b) In the last part of the article, it mentioned the two challenges the Canadian economy
encountered are “housing and swings in commodity prices”. Although the financial markets
pay close attention to these events, the closing sentence was "What happens in financial
markets doesn't stay in financial markets – it has real impacts, it affects jobs and growth."
Explain the logic behind (i.e., discuss how these events affect the real side of the economy).
(6 points)
c) Some said that the Dutch disease might help to tame inflation in Canada. Explain the logic
behind. (4 points)

MGEC61 Assignment 1 (Winter 2022) 6
Answer for Question 1
(Submit this page with your answers in your assignment for grading)

Alpha Beta Gamma
Gross domestic product, GDP 9000 8500
Consumption, C 5600
Investment, I
Government spending, G 4400
Taxes, T
Exports of goods and services, EX
Imports of goods and services, IM 4163
Private saving, SP 2830
Public saving, SG
National saving, S
Net unilateral transfer 0 0 0
Current account, CA – 1445
Sales of country’s financial assets to foreign
residents
1973
Purchases of foreign financial assets by
domestic residents

Official reserve transactions, ORT
Financial account, KA 15
Capital account