EXCHANGE RISK IN THE EMS: SOME EVIDENCE BASED ON A GARCH MODEL*

The paper attempts to detect any changes in the exchange risk as measured by the conditional variance of exchange rate changes before and after foundation of the EMS. The analysis is based on estimation of an econometric model in which the conditional variance is allowed to follow an autoregressive pattern. The results indicate a significant decrease in the volatility of the conditional variance and the risk premium for the EMS countries over the EMS period. No such changes are detected for the non-EMS countries.     

Has the EMS reduced member-country exchange rate volatility?

Using tests for unit roots, serial correlation, and conditional heteroskedasticity, we find that the stochastic structure of the percentage changes in both the Franc/DM and Lira/DM rates is well described by a low order autoregression with ARCH disturbances. While this assertion is not rejected in either the Pre-EMS or the EMS period, we present evidence indicating a structural shift between sub-periods. In particular, while ARCH is present in each sub-period, its explicit parameterization changes dramatically.Likelihood-ratio tests indicate the desirability of a bivariate analysis, and significant ARCH effects are found in the conditional variances and covariances over both subperiods. Likelihood ratio tests also indicate substantial structural change between the subperiods. The conditional variances of exchange rate innovations are used as natural measures of exchange rate volatility; it is found that volatility decreases substantially for both rates in the EMS period. Furthermore, the Franc shows a relatively greater volatility decrease with the move to the EMS, a result consistent with the narrower parity bands established for the Franc. Finally, the covariation of shocks to the two intra-EMS rates is shown to decrease between the Pre-EMS and EMS periods.     

Excess Volatility of Exchange Rates with Unobservable Fundamentals

The authors present tests of excess volatility of exchange rates which impose minimal structure on the data and do not commit to a choice of exchange rate "fundamentals." The method builds on existing volatility tests of asset prices, combining them with a procedure that extracts unobservable fundamentals from survey-based exchange rate expectations. The method is applied to data for the three major exchange rates since 1984, and broad evidence is given of excess volatility with respect to the predictions of the canonical asset-pricing model of the exchange rate with rational expectations.     

The Exchange Rate and its Fundamentals in a Complex World

We develop a nonlinear exchange rate model with heterogeneous agents. Some agents adopt a “fundamentalist” forecasting rule, while others use a “chartist” forecasting rule. We show that the model is capable of explaining the empirical puzzles relating to exchange rate movements. In particular, the model explains the “exchange rate determination” and PPP puzzles, the excess volatility, and fat tails in exchange rate returns.     

Volatility trade-offs in exchange rate target zones

The volatility trade-offs (i.e. the negative relationships between exchange rate variability and the interest rate differential) exhibited in the Krugman [Krugman, P. (1991). Target zones and exchange rate dynamics. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 106, 669–682.] model depend on the assumption of uncovered interest rate parity (UIP). However, the bands for several economies in Latin America and Eastern Europe are substantially different from those within the European Monetary System (EMS), in that their parity relationship deviates from UIP and volatility trade-offs do not exist. This paper develops a graphical exposition and uses it to show that the degree of capital mobility may serve as a plausible vehicle to explain the empirical evidence found in Krugman's regime of exchange rate target zones. Based on a Fleming-type stochastic macro model, we find that when capital mobility is relatively low, exchange rate variability exhibits a positive relationship with the interest rate differential. This result can be regarded as a possible way of resolving the conflicting outcomes between Krugman's prediction and existing empirical observations.     

Welfare and excess volatility of exchange rates

We study the properties of a GEI model with nominal assets, outside money (injected into the economy as in Magill and Quinzii (J Math Econ 21:301–342, 1992)), and multiple currencies. We analyze the existence of monetary equilibria and the structure of the equilibrium set under two different assumptions on the determination of the exchange rates. If currencies are perfect substitutes, equilibrium allocations are indeterminate and, generically, sunspot equilibria exist. Generically, given a nonsunspot equilibrium, there are Pareto improving (and Pareto worsening) sunspot equilibria associated with an increase in the volatility of the future exchange rates. We interpret this property as showing that, in general, there is no clear-cut effect on welfare of the excess volatility of exchange rates, even when due to purely extrinsic phenomena.     

Time-Varying Behavior and Asymmetry in EMS Exchange Rates *

This paper explores the time-varying behavior of five EMS exchange rates namely, the Belgian Franc, Dutch Guilder, French Franc, Italian Lira and the Spanish Peseta vis-à-vis the Deutschemark from 1979 to 1998. The returns were examined using the Sign- and Volatility-Switching GARCH model, which is capable of accounting for potential asymmetries and the reversals in a series' volatility structure. The results point to significant sensitivities of the conditional variances of the French franc, the lira and the peseta to adverse shocks but notable responsiveness to favorable shocks by those of the other rates. Although asymmetry in the volatility structure of all rates is found in the period prior to Germany's reunification in 1990, it vanishes thereafter. Volatility persistence for all rates is noticeable in the first period but becomes more pronounced in the second, [F23, F31]     

Excess Volatility of Realized Excess Profit from Currency Speculation in a Two-Country General Equilibrium Model

This paper examines whether the Lucas model can explain stylized facts in foreign exchange markets, by employing Monte Carlo studies. It is assumed that changes in the logarithms of endowments and of money supplies follow a multivariate Markov switching process. From the results of the Monte Carlo studies, with plausible values of the preference parameters, the excess volatility of the realized excess profit from currency speculation, the strong autocorrelation of the forward premium in the sample can be found in the model for four exchange rates. However, the implied covariance between the forward premium and depreciation rates is positive.     

Exchange rate volatility and United Kingdom trade: evidence from Canada,Japan and New Zealand

This paper investigates the influence of exchange rate volatility on the real imports of the United Kingdom from Canada, Japan and New Zealand during the period 1980–2003. The Johansen multivariate cointegration method and the constrained error correction (general-to-specific) method are applied to study the relationship between real imports and its determinants (including exchange rate volatility). Conditional variance from the GARCH(1,1) model is applied as exchange rate volatility. Both nominal and real exchange rates are employed in the empirical study. Results indicate a significant effect of the exchange rate volatility on real imports. These exchange rate volatility effects are mostly positive. The author thanks an anonymous referee, the editor and Myles Wallace for several useful comments and suggestions. Any remaining errors and omissions are the author’s responsibility alone.     

Exchange rate volatility and bilateral exports of Malaysia to Singapore,China, Japan,the USA and Korea

This study examines the impact of exchange rate volatility on bilateral exports of Malaysia to Singapore, China, Japan, the USA and Korea. Exchange rate volatility is estimated by an autoregressive conditional heteroscedasticity model. The Johansen cointegration method and the dynamic ordinary least squares estimator are used in the estimations. There is some evidence of exchange rate volatility to have significant impact on real total exports in the long run, but more evidence of exchange rate volatility is found to have significant impact on sub-categories of real total exports in the short run. The impact of exchange rate volatility differs across bilateral exports. The impact of exchange rate volatility on exports can be negative or positive. Generally, exchange rate volatility is not harmful to bilateral exports of Malaysia.     

Endogenous Exchange Rate Volatility, Trading Volume and Interest Rate Differentials in a Model of Portfolio Selection

This paper considers a portfolio model of exchange rate determination and focuses on endogenous sources of exchange rate volatility. It is shown that, in addition to volatility transmitted by conditionally heteroskedastic interest rates, the larger the serial correlation in interest rates the stronger the effect of interest rate differentials on exchange rate volatility. These features are supported by the data. The paper also looks at the volume–volatility relationship implied by the model.     

Investigating Intraday Interdependence Between Gold,Silver and Three Major Currencies: the Euro,British Pound and Japanese Yen

In this study, the interrelationship between major exchange rate returns (namely EUR/USD, GBP/USD, JPY/USD) and precious metal returns (gold and silver) is examined using a vector autoregressive model in a multivariate asymmetric GARCH framework on the intraday frequency. Our findings indicate a unidirectional volatility transmission from the majority of our currencies (EUR/USD, GBP/USD) to precious metals. The sluggish response of silver volatility to currency volatility shocks permits implementation of intraday profitable strategies, providing implications against market efficiency when analyzing intraday data. In the case of the British pound and Japanese yen, a volatility shock affects silver volatility more than gold volatility. Crisis events such as the Greek default and US credit rating downgrade reduce significantly the correlation of EUR/USD and gold/silver. The covariance between EUR/USD and silver increases after a volatility shock in EUR/USD. The same happens with JPY/USD and silver. These findings are important for portfolio managers and monetary authorities.     

Exchange rate volatility and the demand for money in the U.S.

This paper examines the effect of changes in the level and volatility of exchange rates on the demand for money. It hypothesizes that exchange rate volatility exerts a negative influence on money demand separate from the effect of the level of exchange rates. Using U.S. data covering the period from 1974.1 to 1990.4, it is found that, regardless of whether the adjustment process is modeled as an error-correction or a partial-adjustment model, exchange rate volatility is negatively related to the demand for real M2 balances. This relationship is found to be more pronounced when exchange rates are expressed in real terms. The results imply that money demand responds to both the volatility of domestic prices relative to foreign prices and to the volatility of nominal exchange rates. Little evidence is found in support of the hypothesis that the level of exchange rates exerts a significant influence on money demand.     

Modelling the impact of central bank intervention on exchange rate volatility under inflation targeting

This article empirically investigates the effect of central bank’s foreign exchange interventions on the level and volatility of the Uganda shilling/US dollar exchange rate (UGX/USD) under an inflation-targeting regime. Utilizing daily data spanning the period 1 September 2005, to 31 December 2015, we estimate a foreign exchange intervention model within a GARCH theoretic framework. Empirical results indicate that foreign exchange interventions have had mixed impact on the volatility of the exchange rate. We find that inflation targeting is capable of curbing temporary exchange rate shocks. Empirical results indicate that while order flow is capable of reducing exchange rate volatility, an increase in the operating target rate, the 7-day interbank rate tends to exacerbate exchange rate volatility. Our empirical results are robust to alternative model specifications. We argue that inflation targeting is an effective monetary policy tool for curbing exchange rate volatility.     

Exchange rate volatility and export performance: a cointegrated VAR approach

During the last decades Norwegian exporters have–despite various forms of exchange rate targeting–faced a rather volatile exchange rate which may have influenced their behaviour. Recently, the shift to inflation targeting and a freely floating exchange rate has brought about an even more volatile exchange rate. We examine the causal link between export performance and exchange rate volatility across different monetary policy regimes within the cointegrated Vector Autoregression (VAR) framework using the implied conditional variance from a Generalized Autoregressive Conditional Heteroskedasticity (GARCH) model as a measure of volatility. Although treating the volatility measure as either a stationary or a nonstationary variable in the VAR, we are not able to find any evidence suggesting that export performance has been significantly affected by exchange rate uncertainty. We find, however, that volatility changes proxied by blip dummies related to the monetary policy change from a fixed to a managed floating exchange rate and the Asian financial crises during the 1990s enter significantly in a dynamic model for export growth–in which the level of relative prices and world market demand together with the level of exports constitute a significant cointegration relationship. A forecasting exercise on the dynamic model rejects the hypothesis that increased exchange rate volatility in the wake of inflation targeting in the monetary policy has had a significant impact on export performance.     

Exchange rate volatility–economic growth nexus in Uganda

The global financial crisis has disrupted trade and capital flows in most developing economies, resulting in an increased volatility of exchange rates. We develop an autoregressive distributed lag model to investigate the effect of exchange rate volatility on economic growth in Uganda. Using data spanning the period 1960–2011, we find that exchange rate volatility positively affects economic growth in Uganda in both the short run and the long run. However, in the short run, political instability negatively moderates the exchange rate volatility–economic growth nexus. These results are robust to alternative specifications of the economic growth model.     

Precious metals–exchange rate volatility transmissions and hedging strategies

This study examines the conditional volatility and correlation dependency and interdependency for the four major precious metals (i.e., gold, silver, platinum and palladium), while accounting for geopolitics within a multivariate system. The implications of the estimated results for portfolio designs and hedging strategies are also analyzed. The results for the four metals system show significant short-run and long-run dependencies and interdependencies to news and past volatility. Furthermore, these results become more pervasive when the exchange rate and federal funds rate are included. Monetary policy also has a differential impact on the precious metals and the exchange rate volatilities. Finally, the applications of the results show the optimal weights in a two-asset portfolio and the hedging ratios for long positions.     

Macroeconomic dynamics in Macedonia and Slovakia: Structural estimation and comparison

This paper estimates a structural macroeconomic model using data for Macedonia and Slovakia to characterize possible challenges Macedonia can face concerning macroeconomic stabilization during its transition process. A comparison of the estimated model parameters suggests that, in Slovakia, the output gap is less sensitive to real interest rate movements and prices experience greater inertia. The estimated monetary policy reaction functions show Macedonia and Slovakia as inflation targeters, with Macedonia as the more conservative one, despite its officially applied exchange rate targeting regime. The differences in the estimated parameters imply differing transmission mechanisms for Macedonia and Slovakia. Consequently, the variance of domestic variables in Slovakia is most influenced by monetary policy shocks, while there is no single dominating shock explaining the volatility of Macedonia's macroeconomic variables. The exchange rate shock, the monetary policy shock and the demand shock are jointly important in determining the volatility of Macedonia's variables. The model simulations indicate that Macedonia experiences lower output gap and inflation volatility than Slovakia. This comes, nevertheless, at the cost of higher interest rate and real exchange rate volatility in Macedonia, which could be an indication of more volatile financial markets with possible negative implications for financial stability.     

EMS exchange rate expectations and time-varying risk premia

In this paper we examine exchange risk premia employing a survey dataset of EMS exchange rates. We are able to test a risk premium model directly, i.e. without having to rely on the rational expectations assumption. Our results indicate that time-varying risk premia are present in almost all cases and that a GARCH-in-mean specification for the premium is often appropriate.     

Convenience yield and real exchange rate dynamics: A present-value interpretation

In this paper, we empirically investigate the relationship between the convenience yield of government bonds and the real exchange rates using monthly data from 1999 to 2018. We extend the conventional models, based on the present-value relationship between the real exchange rate and economic fundamentals, while explicitly considering the role of the convenience yield. Empirical results suggest that our present-value models can capture the dynamic properties of the real exchange rate documented in the literature, including high persistence, excess volatility and excess co-movement compared with real interest rate differentials. We also find that the sum of expected convenience yields significantly drives real exchange rate movements. Moreover, we find that foreign exchange swap market friction also plays a role in explaining real exchange rates. Finally, we find that monetary policy at the zero lower bound may be essential in real exchange rate modelling.