Valuation and Hedging of Differential Swaps

This paper derives a general‐form formula for pricing and hedging differential swaps with the principal denominated either in a domestic, foreign, or third‐country currency. We first derive the formula for differential swaps with the principal in a domestic currency and identify an error in the formula of Wei (1994). We then show the pricing duality between differential swaps with the principal in a domestic currency and differential swaps with the principal in a foreign currency. Finally, we complete the pricing and hedging analysis on differential swaps by deriving a formula for differential swaps with the principal denominated in a third‐country currency. Simulation results indicate that constant margin rates are generally smaller than interest rate differentials and decline with the tenor of swaps. Correlation parameters associated with the exchange rate play a more important role than correlation parameters among interest rates in pricing differential swaps. © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 22:73–94, 2002     

中国汇率、利率、物价等相关关系研究

在经济运行过程中汇率、利率和物价三者关系紧密、相互影响,对经济的运行具有重大的意义。汇率的低估会引发物价上升,而实际汇率又由物价所决定。利率的变化对即期和远期的汇率也会产生重大的影响。我国的通货膨胀不仅应当通过抬高利率来抑制,更重要的应该通过对人民币正确估值,合理变动人民币汇率来解决。     

Uncovered interest parity: it works, but not for long

If an investor borrows in a low interest currency and invests in a high interest currency, the interest differential accrues in a lumpy manner, formally just like the dividend payments on a stock. The investor will receive the interest differential discretely at the point when a position is rolled over from one day to the next. A position that is not held open overnight receives no interest differential because intradaily interest rates are zero. Using a large data set of intradaily exchange rate data, we run uncovered interest parity (UIP) regressions over different short time intervals taking careful account of the settlement rules in the spot foreign exchange market. We find results that are supportive of the uncovered interest parity hypothesis over very short windows of data that span the time of the discrete interest payment. However, adding even a few hours to the span of the window destroys the positive uncovered interest parity results.     

Pricing models of equity swaps

This article provides a generalized formula for pricing equity swaps with constant notional principal when the underlying equity markets and settlement currency can be set arbitrarily. To derive swap values using the risk‐neutral valuation method, the swap payment is replicated at each settlement date by constructing a self‐financing portfolio. To obtain the foreign equity index return denominated in the domestic or in a third currency, equity‐linked foreign exchange options are used to hedge the exchange rate risk. It is found that if the swap involves international equity markets, then the swap value contains an extra term which reflects the currency hedging costs. This methodology can easily be applied to price various types of equity swaps simply by modifying the specifications of the model presented here as required. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 23:751–772, 2003     

Foreign Exchange Reserves and Import Demand: Evidence from Latin America

This paper investigates the impact of foreign reserves, domestic real income and relative import prices on import demand for seven Latin American countries. We differentiate empirically between the short‐run and long‐run impact of reserves, income and prices on imports. The paper has three main results. First, we show that there exists a unique long‐run relationship among real imports, real income, relative import prices and real foreign exchange reserves for all seven countries. Second, we find that increases in foreign exchange reserves exert a significant positive effect on import demand in both the long run and the short run in all countries. However, the economic impact of foreign exchange reserves is rather small. Finally, we find that the long‐ and short‐run impact of real domestic income on import demand is positive as well, while the effect of relative prices is negative.     

Intermediate imports, the terms of trade, and the dynamics of the exchange rate and current account

This paper studies the macroeconomic effects of an increase in the price of an imported intermediate production input. The framework of the analysis is a small open economy with a floating exchange rate and endogenous terms of trade, in which saving depends on residents' (variable) rate of time preference. Contrary to popular conceptions, an intermediate price shock may lead to an appreciation of the exchange rate in both the short run and the long run, and is likely to occasion a current-account surplus. The terms of trade between foreign and domestic finished goods always improve in the long run.     

Cross Hedging with Currency Forward Contracts

This study examines the behavior of a competitive exporting firm that exports to a foreign country and faces multiple sources of exchange rate uncertainty. Although there are no hedging instruments between the home and foreign currencies, there is a third country that has well‐developed currency forward markets to which the firm has access. The firm's optimal cross‐hedging decision is shown to depend both on the degree of incompleteness of the currency forward markets in the third country, and on the correlation structure of the random spot exchange rates. Furthermore, the firm is shown to be more eager to produce and expand its exports to the foreign country when the missing currency forward contracts between the home and foreign currencies can be synthesized by the existing currency forward contracts. In this case of perfect cross hedging, the separation theorem holds but the full‐hedging theorem may or may not hold. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark     

Market integration and contagion: Evidence from Asian emerging stock and foreign exchange markets

This paper examines whether Asian emerging stock markets (India, Korea, Malaysia, Philippines, Taiwan, and Thailand) have become integrated into world capital markets since their official liberalization dates by estimating and testing a dynamic integrated international capital asset pricing model (ICAPM) in the absence of purchasing power parity (PPP) using an asymmetric multivariate GARCH(1,1)-in-Mean approach. Also examined in this paper is whether there are pure contagion effects between stock and foreign exchange markets for each Asian country during the 1997 Asian crisis. The empirical results show that first, both currency and world market risks are priced and time-varying, suggesting that an international asset pricing model under PPP and constant price of risk might give rise to model misspecification. Second, the stock markets for India, Korea, Malaysia, Philippines, and Thailand were segmented from the world capital markets before their liberalization dates, but all six markets have become fully integrated since then. Third, the market liberalization has reduced the cost of capital and price volatility for most of the countries. Finally, as for the contagion effects, strong positive impact of return shocks originating from the domestic stock market to its foreign exchange market during the crisis is found. This dynamic relationship between stock market and foreign exchange market is consistent with stock-oriented exchange rate models.     

ON FINITE DIMENSIONAL REALIZATIONS OF TWO-COUNTRY INTEREST RATE MODELS

This paper explores how consistent two-dimensional families of forward rate curves can be constructed on an international market. Applying the approach in Björk and Christenssen (1999) and Björk and Svensson (2001) , we study when a system of inherently infinite dimensional domestic and foreign forward rate processes in a two-country economy with spot (forward) exchange rate possesses finite dimensional realizations. In the system with the forward exchange rate, the forward interest rate equations are supplemented by a third infinite dimensional stochastic differential equation representing the forward exchange rate dynamics. We construct and fit consistent families to observed Euro and USD yields as well as the forward (spot) EUR/USD exchange rate.     

The Dynamics of Currency,Savings, and Investment Rates

This paper examines the dynamic relations among foreign exchange rates, savings, and investment ratio for a sample of 25 countries from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. We find that the savings rate and the investment rate are cointegrated of order (1, −1). This result is consistent with the literature on the savings–investment relations and therefore confirms the validity of the Feldstein–Horioka puzzle. Using country‐specific and longitudinal panel vector autoregressive models, we show that historical savings–investment differentials do not help explain foreign exchange rates. We demonstrate, however, that foreign exchange rates and trade balance ratio impact the difference between savings and investments. Specifically, depreciation in the domestic currency would cause the savings–investment difference to widen.     

Export Performance,Invoice Currency and Heterogeneous Exchange Rate Pass‐through

Using comprehensive, shipment‐level merchandise trade data for a small, open economy, we examine heterogeneity in exporters' exchange rate pass‐through (ERPT) behaviour. We draw together two recent studies of ERPT, linking invoice currency decisions and firm performance to heterogeneity in ERPT. Like these studies, we find that the short‐run reaction of export unit values to exchange rate fluctuations is significantly related to both invoice currency choice and exporter characteristics when these are analysed separately. However, we then show that when the two factors are jointly accounted for, the role of exporter characteristics largely disappears. That is, some firm types are more inclined to invoice in the producer currency, while others use either the local or a vehicle currency. In the short run, this translates into differences in exchange rate pass‐through because of price rigidity in the invoice currency. Firm characteristics do not have an independent impact on pass‐through beyond their effect on currency composition. Differences across invoice currencies diminish over time, but do not disappear, as prices adjust to reflect bilateral exchange rate movements.     

Liability dollarization and the bank balance sheet channel

Emerging markets' financial institutions often face a mismatch in the currency denominations of their liabilities (foreign currency-denominated debt raised from foreign lenders) and their assets (domestic currency loans to domestic borrowers). We study the effect of this mismatch on monetary policy in a sticky-price, dynamic general-equilibrium small open economy model in which the country default-risk premium depends on domestic banks' balance sheets due to asymmetric information. A fixed exchange rate rule that stabilizes bank balance sheets offers greater stability than does an interest rate rule that targets inflation to offset the real effects of sticky-prices.     

The pricing of foreign currency options under jump‐diffusion processes

In this article, the authors derive explicit formulas for European foreign exchange (FX) call and put option values when the exchange rate dynamics are governed by jump‐diffusion processes. The authors use a simple general equilibrium international asset pricing model with continuous trading and frictionless international capital markets. The domestic and foreign price level are introduced as state variables that contain jumps caused by monetary shocks and catastrophic events such as 9/11 or Hurricane Katrina. The domestic and foreign interest rates are stochastic and endogenously determined in the model and are shown to be critically affected by the jump risk of the foreign exchange. The model shows that the behavior of FX options is affected through the impact of state variables and parameters on the nominal interest rates. The model contrasts with those of M. Garman and S. Kohlhagen (1983) and O. Grabbe (1983), whose models have exogenously determined interest rates. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 27:669–695, 2007     

基于商品出口的快速报价法

对外报价是货物出口贸易中必须遇到的一个环节，本文通过收支平衡的基本原理，推导出本币与外币的“换汇折算率”，并融合了外贸公司的利润目标，分析并说明了外贸从业人员如何通过综合考虑人民币汇率、出口退税率、预期利润率等变量，将商品的本币价格快速而准确地换算成外币价格，对外报价。     

宏观经济因素与人民币汇率浮动

采用协整检验和误差修正模型等计量经济学方法,就当前国内若干热点变动的宏观经济因素变量对汇改后人民币汇率的影响进行了实证研究,研究结果表明热点变动的中美利差水平、通货膨胀率差异水平以及外汇储备增长率与人民币升值幅度之间存在长期稳定的均衡关系。长期来看,利差水平对人民币名义汇率影响程度较大,而短期内,外汇储备因素和人民币汇率自身变动的前期信息对其影响较为显著。     

Identifying macro-determinants of remittance flows to a developing country: The case of Uganda

This paper employs minimum Lagrange Multiplier (LM) unit root tests for endogenous structural breaks combined with ARCH and GARCH models to investigate how key macrovariables impact diaspora remittances. Since remittances can reverse-cause exchange rate movements and domestic income, we use changes in the world price of oil denominated in U.S. dollars to proxy movements in the Uganda shilling nominal effective exchange rate. To control for endogenous bias between remittances and income, we use rainfall shocks as proxies for income shocks in a non-oil-producing developing economy dominated by agricultural sector and its related activities. In addition, large movements in oil price and rainfall shocks typically cause large supply shocks that can significantly impact size of remittance inflows. We control for interest rate differential, political business cycles and seasonality. Results indicate that accounting for structural change in intercepts (levels) and slopes (trends) of key macroeconomic determinants of remittances around their major structural break points significantly increases their explanatory power. In particular, positive (negative) innovations in income and depreciation (appreciation) in the currency of a recipient developing country are negatively (positively) correlated with remittance inflows. These results are robust across different model specifications.     

印度甘尽苦来

如果外储不足以维持货币稳定,便只有提高利率,这又可能引起投资泡沫破灭。这一逻辑循环正是当下印度的写照。中国股市因摸着石头过河,缺乏顶层设计而十年涨幅归零。这方面印度堪称楷模,初期就注重制度建设。1990年代初,在资本市场改革之始,政府采取了一揽子举措,金融体系与西方的成熟市场全面接轨,成就了印度股市21世纪前十年的大牛市。     

浅谈现代饭店业外汇风险管理

我国加入WTO后,旅游事业呈现了蓬勃发展势头。良好的经济形势在给饭店业带来无限商机的同时也带来了外汇收支管理等问题。尤其是现代饭店业面临着外汇交易、外汇借款、汇率折算等风险。应全面掌握国际市场主要货币汇率、收支状况,正确选择外币币种,适当调整商品价格,采用外汇保值条款等手段加强饭店业外汇管理,减少外汇风险,提高饭店经济效益。     

Hedging with mismatched currencies

This article presents a model of a risk-averse multinational firm facing risk exposure to a foreign currency cash flow. Forward markets do not exist between the firm's own currency and the foreign currency, but do exist for a third currency. Because a triangular parity condition holds among these three currencies, the available forward markets, albeit incomplete, provide a useful avenue for the firm to indirectly hedge against its foreign exchange rate risk exposure. This article offers analytical insights into the optimal cross-hedging strategies of the firm. In particular, the results show that separate unbiasedness of the forward markets does not necessarily imply a perfect full hedge that eliminates the entire foreign exchange rate risk exposure of the firm. The optimal cross-hedging strategies depend largely on the firm's marginal utility function and on the correlation of the random spot exchange rates. © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Jrl Fut Mark 19:859–875, 1999     

FX Market Returns and Their Relationship to Investor Fear

This note examines the relationship between changes in levels of investor fear (measured by the implied volatility index) and foreign exchange market returns. Our empirical results indicate a negative relationship between daily returns on high‐interest rate (investing) currencies and changes in the implied volatility index, while the association is positive for low‐interest rate (funding) currencies. That is, investing (funding) currencies tends to depreciate (appreciate) when investor fear increases. A sequential breakpoint test identifies a significant change in this relationship in the period following the 2008 collapse of Lehman Brothers, and another in 2012 following the resolution of the European sovereign debt crisis, which suggests that the relationship is linked to financial system liquidity. During the crisis period, currency returns are much more sensitive to changes in investor fear, and this is particularly so for funding currencies that are perceived to present a safe‐haven. The results have important implications for international finance, and those looking to speculate via the carry trade.