ECON 102 Final: FINAL QUESTIONS ECON 102

A1. The demand in Japan for new automobiles is elastic and sensitive to market prices. Given that, describe the effect of each of the following on the quantity demanded or the demand for new autos in Japan. Indicate whether the effect of each is an upward or downward movement along a given demand curve or instead involves an outward or inward shift in the demand curve for new autos. Explain your answers.

a. A decrease in the average price of new Japanese automobiles.
b. A fall in Japanese interest rates.
c. A rise in the price of public transportation in Japan.
d. A rise in the price of food in the United States.

A2.Suppose the demand for beer is characterized by the following point elasticities:

own price elasticity = -2.5

cross-price elasticity with soda = +3

income elasticity = +2

Based on the given elasticities, answer the following. Explain your answers.

a. If a firm in the industry wishes to increase total sales revenue (ignoring cost considerations), will it raise or lower its selling price? Why?

b. What happens to the demand for beer if the price of soda falls by 2%? Explain your answer.

c. What happens to the demand for beer if consumer income rises by 5%? Be specific.

d. Is beer a normal or inferior good? Explain.

Subaru's Sales Boom Thanks to the Weaker Yen For the Japanese carmaker Subaru, a sharp fall in the value of yen against the U.S. dollar has turned a problem the lack of U.S. production into an unexpected sales boom. Subaru, which is a niche player in the global auto industry, has long bucked the trend among its Japanese rivals of establishing significant manufacturing facilities in the North American market. Instead, the company has chosen to concentrate most of its manufacturing in Japan in order to achieve economies of scale at its home plants, exporting its production to the United States. Subaru still makes 80 percent of its vehicles at home, compared with 21 percent for Honda. Back in 2012, this strategy was viewed as something of a liability. In those days, one U.S. dollar bought only 80 Japanese yen. The strong yen meant that Subaru cars were being priced out of the U.S. market. Japanese companies like Honda and Toyota, which had substantial production in the United States, gained business at Subaru's expense. But from 2012 onward, with Japan mired in recession and consumer prices falling, the country's central bank repeatedly cut interest rates in an attempt to stimulate the economy. As interest rates fell in Japan, investors moved money out of the country, selling yen and buying the U.S. dollar. They used those dollars to invest in U.S. stocks and bonds where they anticipated a greater return. As a consequence, the price of yen in terms of dollars fell. By December 2015, one dollar bought 120 yen, representing a 50 percent fall in the value of the yen against the U.S. dollar since 2012. For Subaru, the depreciation in the value of the yen has given it a pricing advantage and driven a sales boom. Demand for Subaru cars in the United States has been so strong that the automaker has been struggling to keep up. The profits of Subaru's parent company, Fuji Heavy Industries, have surged. In February 2015, Fuji announced that it would earn record operating profits of around ¥410 billion ($3.5 billion) for the financial year ending March 2015. Subaru's profit margin has increased to 14.4 percent, compared with 5.6 percent for Honda, a company that is heavily dependent on U.S. production. The good times continued in 2015, with Subaru posting record profits in the quarter ending December 31, 2015. Despite its current pricing advantage, Subaru is moving to increase its U.S. production. It plans to expand its sole plant in the United States, in Indiana, by March 2017, with a goal of making 310,000 a year, up from 200,000 currently. When asked why it is doing this, Subaru's management notes that the yen will not stay weak against the dollar forever, and it is wise to expand local production as a hedge against future increases in the value of the yen. Indeed, when the Bank of Japan decided to set a key interest rate below zero in early February 2016, the yen started to appreciate against the U.S. dollar, presumably on expectations that negative interest rates would finally help stimulate Japan's sluggish economy. By late March 2016, the yen had appreciated against the dollar and was trading at $1=112 yen. Sources: Chang-Ran Kim,Subaru-Maker, Fuji Heavy Lifts Profit View on Rosy US Sales, Weak Yen Reuters, February 3, 2015; Yoko Kubota, Why Subaru's Profit Is Surging, The Wall Street Journal, November 14, 2014; Doron Levin, Subaru Profit Soaring on Weaker Yen, Market Watch, November 15, 2014; Y. Kubato, Weaker Yen Drives Subaru Makers Profit Higher, The Wall Street Journal, February 4, 2016. Page 294

Case Discussion Questions:

Why do you think that historically, Subaru chose to export production from Japan, rather than set up manufacturing facilities in the United States like its Japanese rivals?

What are the currency risks associated with Subaru's export strategy?

What are the potential benefits? Why did Subaru's sales and profits surge in 2014 and 2015? Is Subaru wise to expand its U.S. production capacity?

What other strategies could the company use to hedge against adverse changes in exchange rates? What are the pros and cons of the different hedging strategies Subaru might adopt?

Please read the passage and answer the questions below.

During the first half of the 2000s, the Japanese yen was relatively weak against the U.S. dollar. This was a boon for Japan’s export-led economy. On January 1, 2008, it took 122 yen to buy one U.S. dollar. For the next four years, the yen strengthened relentlessly against the dollar, hitting a record high of ¥75.31 to the dollar on October 31, 2011. The reasons for the rise of the yen were complex and had little to do with the strength of the Japanese economy because there has been very little of that in evidence. The weakness of the yen during the early to mid-2000s was due to the so-called carry trade. This financial strategy involved borrowing in Japanese yen, where interest rates were close to zero, and investing the loans in higher-yielding assets, typically U.S. Treasury bills, which carried interest rates 3 to 4 percentage points greater. Investors made profits from the interest rate differential. At its peak, financial institutions had more than a trillion dollars invested in the carry trade. Because the strategy involved selling borrowed yen to purchase dollar-denominated assets, it drove the value of the yen lower. The interest rate differential existed because the Japanese economy was weak, prices were falling, and the Bank of Japan had been lowering interest rates in an attempt to boost growth and get Japan out of a dangerous deflationary cycle. When the global financial crisis hit in 2008 and 2009, the Federal Reserve in the United States responded by injecting liquidity into battered financial markets, effectively lowering U.S. interest rates on U.S. Treasury bonds. As these fell, the interest rate differential between Japanese and U.S. assets narrowed sharply, and the carry trade became unprofitable. Financial institutions unwound their positions, selling dollar-denominated assets, and buying yen to pay back their original loans. The increased demand drove up the value of the yen. For Japanese exporters, the 40 percent increase in the value of the yen against the dollar (and the euro) between early 2008 and 2012 was a painful experience. A strong yen hurts the price competitiveness of Japanese exports and reduces the value of profits earned overseas when translated back into yen. Take Toyota as an example: In February 2012, the company stated that its profit for the year ending March 31, 2012, would be about ¥200 billion, 51 percent lower than in the prior year. Toyota makes nearly half of the cars it sells globally at its Japanese plants, so it has been particularly hard hit by a rise in the value of the yen. In late 2012, things started to change when the pro-business Liberal Democratic Party won national elections and Shinzo Abe was appointed prime minister. Abe had campaigned on a platform that included taking actions to weaken the value of the yen to help Japan’s exporters. Even before the election, Japan’s central bank had accelerated purchases of government securities, thereby expanding the money supply, and had agreed to a higher inflation target. Under Abe’s leadership, this policy had explicit government support. One consequence of the policy was to reduce the value of the yen against other currencies. Indeed, between October 2012 and December 2013, the yen lost more than 25 percent of its value against the U.S. dollar. The yen was trading at ¥104 to the U.S. dollar in late December 2013. While this helped Japan’s exporters, the policy was criticized by other major industrial nations as a unilateral action that came dangerously close to precipitating a currency war.

1. Who in Japan benefits from the devaluation of the yen? Who does this hurt in Japan?

2. What does this case teach you about the way foreign exchange markets work?