Bm. Barber et al., The impact of shocks to exchange rates and oil prices on US sales of American and Japanese automakers, JPN WORLD E, 11(1), 1999, pp. 57-93
Since 1973, floating exchange rates and significant oil-price changes have
coincided with dramatic market-share gains (losses) by Japanese (American)
automakers in the U.S. market. This paper analyzes and empirically estimate
s the extent to which exchange rate and oil price changes have contributed
to this market shift. We first develop a dynamic Cournot model of long-run
profit-maximizing firms that operate in a macroeconomy characterized by sho
cks to income, exchanges rates, oil prices, and firm-specific demands and s
upplies. Using the solutions for quantities sold from this model, we then c
onstruct a structural vector autoregression (VAR) to estimate and identify
a reduced-form VAR. The empirical results indicate that a strong yen increa
ses quantities sold by American automakers and decreases quantities sold by
Japanese automakers; this exchange-rate effect accounts for approximately
four percent of the variance of changes in monthly-sales quantity for autom
akers. Oil-price increases reduce the quantity of automobiles sold by Ameri
can automakers, but, contrary to the common belief, have little effect on J
apanese automakers; this oil-price effect accounts for 6.5 percent of the v
ariance of changes in monthly-sales quantities for American automakers. Ove
r the two decades we analyze, however, the real value of the dollar has alm
ost steadily declined against the yen, and the real price of oil has ended
up unchanged, so these variables cannot explain the decline (rise) of Ameri
can (Japanese) automakers. Clearly, automobile sales are exposed to exchang
e rate, oil price, and income risk; between 10 and 20 percent of the change
s in monthly-sales quantities can be explained by the macroeconomic variabl
es that we analyze. However, we conclude that firm-specific policies probab
ly account for the bulk of gains and losses actually experienced by the aut
omakers. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V.