The Relationship between RMB Exchange Rate and Chinese Trade Balance: Evidence from a Bootstrap Rolling Window Approach

Abstract

This study inspects the fundamental relationship between the exchange rate and the trade balance in China. The outcome shows that the real effective exchange rate and trade balance in China has no causal relationship. Though, seeing structural changes in two series, we got the result those both long-run and short-run associations using full-sample data are wobbly, which proposes that the full-sample causation tests can’t be relied upon. Then, using time-varying rolling window method to reexamine the dynamic fundamental relationship. The results show that real effective exchange rate has both negative and positive impacts on the trade balance in several sub-periods, and in turn, trade balance has same impact on real effective exchange rate for China. These findings provide no support for the existence of J-curve effect and Marshall-Lerner Condition in case of China. This study shows that it is impossible to resolve China’s trade deficit, depending only on the movement of RMB’s exchange rate.