Assessing the Exchange Rate Volatility as an External Shock to Chinese Economy

Abstract

Theoretically, the rate of exchange is one of the major drivers of inflation that influences the wholesale price index (WPI) in countries where significant emphasis is put over import and export like China. In this paper, the exchange rate’s clustering volatility and its impulsiveness as an external shock to WPI is investigated on a set of time series data which represents 4,067 daily observation of Chinese Economy from August 12, 2004-September 30, 2015. The ordinary least square and weighted regression analysis reveal significant p-values of 0.000 for exchange rate that explain the WPI throughout the stated period. The autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity and generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity model exhibit significant probability value of 0.000 and 0.044 respectively for WPI and the exchange rate. It is found that the previous days’ volatility of WPI influences the future volatility of WPI as an internal shock in addition to the previous days’ impulsiveness of the exchange rate which influences the future volatility of the WPI as an external shock. The testing models are thoroughly applied and their stability and validity are evidenced thereto.