The study looked at how changes in monetary policy and exchange rates affect South Africa's trade balance. They found that when the exchange rate goes up, the trade balance gets worse over time, but not forever. Monetary policy affects the trade balance by making people switch what they spend money on, rather than changing how much money they have. The exchange rate has a bigger impact on the trade balance than monetary policy. Both monetary policy and exchange rate changes make the trade balance worse by increasing imports, not decreasing exports. Lastly, when monetary policy directly affects the exchange rate, the trade balance gets worse by a small amount after five quarters.