The Unbiasedness Hypothesis in the Freight Forward Market: Evidence from Cointegration Tests

The current paper investigates the unbiasedness hypothesis of Forward Freight Agreement (FFA) prices in the freight over-the-counter (OTC) forward market trades. Cointegration techniques are employed to examine the hypothesis. The results indicate that: FFA prices one and two months before maturity are unbiased predictors of the realised spot freight rates for all investigated shipping routes; three months FFA prices for panamax Pacific routes are unbiased predictors of spot prices, while FFA prices for panamax Atlantic routes are found to be biased predictors of spot prices. This diverse evidence suggests that the validity of the unbiasedness hypothesis depends on the specific characteristics of the market under investigation, the selected trading route and the time to maturity of the contract. JEL classification G13, G14, C32     

The Forex Forward Puzzle: The Career Risk Hypothesis

We conjecture that the forward puzzle may reflect career risks. When professional investors observe public danger signals about a currency, they require a premium for holding it. We find evidence of this in Exchange Rate Mechanism rates. As deep discounts do signal danger, we next specify nonlinear variants of the Fama regression to capture this risk. We also decompose the forward premium into a long-memory trend and short-term component. We find empirical evidence for a career risk premium; risk is in fact dominant in the trend component while the short-term component loads more on expectations. All confidence intervals are calculated via Monte Carlo.     

Uncovered Interest Parity,Forward Guidance and the Exchange Rate

Under uncovered interest parity (UIP), the size of the effect on the real exchange rate of an anticipated change in real interest rate differentials is invariant to the horizon at which the change is expected. Empirical evidence using U.S., euro area and UK data points to a substantial deviation from that invariance prediction: expectations of interest rate differentials in the near (distant) future are shown to have much larger (smaller) effects on the real exchange rate than is implied by UIP. Some possible explanations are discussed.     

Carry Trades,Order Flow,and the Forward Bias Puzzle

We investigate the relation between foreign exchange (FX) order flow and the forward bias. We outline a decomposition of the forward bias according to which a negative correlation between interest rate differentials and order flow creates a time‐varying risk premium consistent with that bias. Using 10 years of data on FX order flow, we find that more than half of the forward bias is accounted for by order flow—with the rest being explained by expectational errors. We also find that carry trading increases currency‐crash risk in that order flow generates negative skewness in FX returns.     

The Information Signaling Hypothesis of Dividends: Evidence from Cointegration and Causality Tests

This paper uses cointegration and causality tests to study the temporal behavior of dividends and earnings at the individual firm level. We find that, for a sample of 143 non‐utility firms, approximately one‐fifth of the firms exhibits a temporal relationship between dividends and earnings that is consistent with the information signaling hypothesis of dividends. In the case of 72 utilities, about a third exhibit dividend policies that are consistent with the signaling notion of dividends. Further examination of firm characteristic differences between signaling and non‐signaling firms shows that, in the case of non‐utility firms, signaling firms tend to be smaller, have a lower growth rate of total assets, and have a higher leverage ratio. In the case of utilities, we find no major differences in firm characteristics between signaling and non‐signaling firms.     

Natural Exchange Rate and Its Implications for the Purchasing Power Parity Puzzle

The notion of purchasing power parity has been an important building block in the theory of nominal and real exchange rates and for many theoretic models in international economics, leading to the purchasing power parity puzzle. The central issue of the puzzle is how to reconcile volatile short-term movements of real exchange rates (defined as nominal exchange rates adjusted for differences in national price levels) with very slow convergence to the parity condition. The main emphasis of this article is to show that the slow adjustment of the natural exchange rate is responsible for the well-known slow convergence of the real exchange rate to the long-run parity condition. The novel element of this article is to identify the relative importance between the financial channel and output gap channel of the purchasing power parity puzzle. The empirical findings of this article suggest that the financial channel is a dominant factor to explain persistent deviations of the real exchange rate from its long-run level.     

Incomplete Exchange Rate Pass-Through: Evidence from Exchange Rate Reform in China

Exchange rate disconnect is one of the central puzzles in international macroeconomics. Recently, there is a growing literature that studies the microeconomic foundations or mechanisms for incomplete exchange rate pass-through. However, the estimations of the exchange rate pass-through vary widely in the existing literature. Our article proposes the use of a policy-based instrumental variable for exchange rate, exploiting the exchange rate reform in China, and finds that 67% of exchange rate pass-through into the FOB export price of Chinese exports. This contrasts to the almost full exchange rate pass-through using OLS estimation. We further find that the export price of homogeneous goods, low-technology goods, and goods supplied by domestic non-SOEs is more sensitive to exchange rate changes.     

Inflation Targeting and Exchange Rate Pass-Through: The Turkish Experience

Using a vector autoregression model, we show that the pass-through from imported inflation to domestic inflation has weakened substantially and slowed after the adoption of inflation targeting in Turkey. We argue that this finding is due mainly to several features—such as enhanced credibility of the central bank, changing behavior of the exchange rate, and a shift in expectation formation—possibly acquired by the implementation of a successful inflation-targeting regime. These observations suggest that adopting an inflation-targeting regime in itself may help to reduce exchange rate pass-through.     

A Fractional Cointegration Approach to Testing Mean Reversion Between Spot and Forward Exchange Rates: A Case of High Frequency Data with Low Frequency Dynamics

This paper applies a relatively new but generalised concept of fractional cointegration to shed some light on the validity of a long-run relationship between high frequency daily spot and the lagged forward Australian-US dollar exchange rate. An investigation of the stochastic properties of these rates reveals that, while the relationship is not cointegrated in their logs, they appear to be fractionally cointegrated if we allow for mean reverting processes that are CI (1, d ) with 0< d <1. The paper demonstrates that relaxing the condition that the residual from the cointegration equation must be a I (0) process, captures a much wider class of mean-reversion behaviour. This result is interpreted in the context of the speculative EMH between the spot and forward exchanges rates, as having some empirical support. Furthermore, an analysis of the short-run dynamics propelling the long-run relationship tends to imply that in both the short- and long-term, the forward rate is led by the spot rate. In the longer term, the spot rate is found to be the initial receptor of any exogenous shock to the equilibrium and it is the forward exchange rate that bears the brunt of short-run adjustment to re-establish the long-run equilibrium relationship. The approach illustrated in this paper is shown to hold enormous potential for tests of mean reversion involving hypotheses popular to financial econometrics in general, where the dynamics of high frequency data are under scrutiny.     

Estimating Cointegrated Panels with Common Factors and the Forward Rate Unbiasedness Hypothesis

This article proposes a bias-adjusted estimator for use in cointegratedpanel regressions when the errors are cross-sectionally correlatedthrough an unknown common factor structure. The asymptotic distributionof the new estimator is derived and is examined in small samplesusing Monte Carlo simulations. For the estimation of the numberof factors, several information-based criteria are considered.The simulation results suggest that the new estimator performswell in comparison to existing ones. In our empirical application,we provide new evidence suggesting that the forward rate unbiasednesshypothesis cannot be rejected.     

The Equilibrium Exchange Rate of Mauritius: Evidence from Two Structural Models

In this paper we assess the equilibrium value of the Mauritian rupee in 2006-7 and over the medium run using two structural models. First, we derive a current account-based measure of the exchange rate equilibrium using the macroeconomic balance approach. Second, we estimate a reduced-form fundamental equilibrium exchange rate measure. Our results, which are robust to an alternative non-econometric approach, suggest that the Mauritian rupee was aligned with its equilibrium value in 2006-7 and little adjustment appeared necessary over the medium run.     

人民币汇率波动与中日贸易

金融危机使人民币汇率存在着较大的不确定性和波动性,对中日贸易产生着重要影响。通过建立中日贸易模型的实证研究,结果表明中国对日出口收入效应较强,从日进口收入效应较弱;对日出口价格效应极强,从日进口价格效应较弱;对日出口汇率波动效应较强,从日进口汇率波动效应不存在。因此,若人民币持续升值,汇率波动日益增强,中国经济将会受到严重冲击。故中国政府应暂缓人民币升值,放缓人民币汇率形成机制改革的步伐。     

The Impact of Exchange Rate on Firm Performance: Evidence from Korean Firms

This article analyzes the role of exchange rate in explaining firm investment between 2006 and 2014, considering both export and import channels as possible factors along with other firm-level characteristics based on the Census on Establishments. Using the detailed information on exports and imports from the data, we are able to capture the cost and revenue channel more precisely compared to the previous existing literature. The empirical analysis shows that the export channel appears to be insignificant as opposed to conventional wisdom. However, the import channel is significant and shows that currency appreciation may not necessarily decrease a firm’s investment level.     

Weekly Pattern of Exchange Rate Risks: Evidence from Ten Asian-Pacific Currencies

This paper examines the day-of-the-week effect on the currency returns of ten Asian-Pacific countries and differs from previous studies in that it tests directly the effect on higher moments of currency returns. Using ten-year daily data, the results first show that currency returns are non-normally distributed, particularly with very large kurtosis. The hypothesis of equal higher moments (e.g., skewness or kurtosis or both) cannot be rejected by any pair of weekdays only for the Australian dollar. For the remaining nine currencies, the same hypothesis is rejected by at least one pair of weekdays. Six currencies reject the hypothesis in all pairs of weekdays, supporting the existence of the day-of-the-week effect on higher moments. Further analysis shows that Rogalski's effect exists on the higher moments of three currencies because the day-of-the-week effect exists only in non-January months. Sub-period analysis indicates that the weekly patterns on higher moments are quite consistent across two sub-periods for all currencies except the Taiwanese dollar. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

境内人民币远期与NDF汇率关系

对2006年8月11日至2009年11月30日1月期、3月期、6月期和12月期的远期汇率进行统计和计量分析后发现:金融危机后,境内人民币远期汇率与NDF汇率的总体波动性有所降低,人民币远期汇率弹性有所下降;境内人民币远期市场的定价能力提高主要体现在短期限品种NDF汇率对于境内人民币远期汇率单向引导关系减弱,而二者的相互引导关系增强;长期限品种NDF汇率对于境内人民币远期汇率的引导关系不变。因此后金融危机时期一方面要防范国际资本和政治经济压力对中国汇率的冲击,同时也要择机有序退出临时性汇率安排,稳步推进人民币汇率形成机制改革。     

异质预期条件下中央银行沟通对人民币汇率波动的影响

在外汇市场交易者预期异质性的假设条件下,以2005年7月至2015年12月中国人民银行沟通频数和人民币汇率数据为样本,采用异质预期汇率模型考察中央银行沟通对人民币汇率波动的总体影响。研究发现：在异质预期条件下,中央银行沟通通过信息机制和协调机制影响外汇市场交易者的异质预期,从而对人民币汇率波动产生较为显著的影响,但由于我国外汇交易者预期向基本面预期转换的发生概率小于技术分析交易者预期,中央银行沟通对人民币汇率波动的平稳作用效力受到一定的局限。     

Forward and Futures Prices: Evidence from the Foreign Exchange Markets

Empirical studies of the Treasury Bill markets have revealed substantial differences between the futures price and the implied forward price. These differences have been attributed to taxes, transaction costs, and the settling up procedure employed in the futures market. This paper examines the forward and futures prices in foreign exchange in an attempt to distinguish between the competing explanations.     

Forward and Futures Prices: Evidence from the Foreign Exchange Markets

Cornell and Reinganum (1981) , hereafter CR, report that price differentials for future contracts and forward contracts are statistically insignificant in foreign exchange markets. Based on this finding, CR conclude that marking-to-market is insignificant in the formulation of currency futures prices. This note identifies two potential concerns with the CR tests. One problem relates to the timing of delivery dates for “matched” contracts. A second problem relates to the time period for the CR study. We show that correcting for these problems does not affect the overall conclusions of the CR study; marking-to-market does not appear to have a significant effect on currency futures prices.     

人民币预期汇率变动与虚假贸易——基于套汇视角的分析

虚假贸易对国内经济秩序造成不良影响,受到了密切关注。本文基于2010—2012年中国大陆到香港的月度出口数据,实证检验了人民币汇率出现单边预期以及资本管制的大背景下,企业出于套汇动机而进行的虚假贸易行为。本文发现远期汇率升值显著促进了产品出口额增加,并且这一现象对于高价值重量比的产品更加明显。异质性分析表明虚假贸易行为更倾向于出现在加工贸易占比较高的行业。2012年汇率改革增大了人民币汇率的波动幅度,增加了企业跨境套利的成本,汇改之后企业的虚假贸易行为得到明显抑制。此外,远期汇率升值同时提高了虚假出口占总出口的比重。本文从一个新的视角研究了我国的虚假贸易问题,并对打击虚假贸易活动提出相关建议。