Exchange Rate Determination: An Application of a Monetary Model for Brazil

The goal of this paper is to test a variant of the monetary exchange rate determination model, described by Obstfeld and Rogoff (1996), for the Brazilian economy in the recent period. The model starts with the Cagan (The Journal of Political Economy, 66(4):303-328, 1958) money demand, which is complemented by the hypotheses of purchase power parity (PPP) and uncovered interest parity (UIP). We used monthly data of exchange rate, GDP, interest rate for Brazil, and U. S. interest rate and inflation as proxies for international variables. We applied cointegration tests to identify a long run relationship among the variables. The estimated error correction model offers an exchange rate determination model in the short run. Due to potential endogeneity of some variables, GMM was applied to estimate a long-run model of exchange rate determination. The forecasting results of both estimatives were compared with a random walk approach. The results point to the existence of a long and short run equilibrium Real/dollar exchange rate using the structural model, which may be the achievement of this paper. © 2010 International Atlantic Economic Society.