Central Bank Intervention in USD/INR Market: Estimating Its Reaction Function and Impact on Volatility

Econometric evidence on why central banks intervene in the foreign exchange market and the impact of such intervention has remained inconclusive. We contribute to the literature with evidence from India, a managed float regime that sees consistent monitoring and intervention by Reserve Bank of India, India’s central bank. Estimation of the central bank reaction function shows that increased volatility in the foreign exchange market and misalignment from targeted rates are important objectives behind intervention. The paper further uses the GARCH framework to study how intervention influences exchange rate volatility. We find that intervention in the spot market increases volatility while that in the forward market reduces volatility.     

Capturing the time dynamics of central bank intervention

We estimate central bank reaction functions using the autoregressive conditional hazard model and the autoregressive conditional binomial model. We find that the Federal Reserve and Bundesbank intervened when the market was calmer, and the Bundesbank intervened in response to exchange rates being out-of-line with fundamentals. Japan intervened in response to changes in the nominal exchange rate, and intervention differed before and after Eisuke Sakakibara became Director General of the International Finance Bureau of the Ministry of Finance in Japan. We argue that these results are consistent with central bank policy goals and the effect of intervention on the exchange rate.     

货币政策应该关注资产价格和汇率吗?

在Rudebusch and Svensson(1999)模型中引入了房地产价格、股票价格和汇率因素,以此为基础推导出最优货币政策反应函数。该反应函数显示,中央银行既要应对产出和通货膨胀变化,还应该考虑资产价格和汇率波动。基于GMM方法的实证分析表明,该反应函数能够较好刻画过去10多年间中国中央银行的货币政策。总体而言,该反应函数可以作为中国货币政策制定和执行的参考框架,货币政策应该对资产价格和汇率波动给予一定程度的关注。     

Zone-quadratic preference,asymmetry and international reserve accretion in India: An empirical investigation

Empirical estimates of the Reserve Bank of India's (RBI) intervention reaction function suggest that the central bank actively intervenes in the foreign exchange market to contain volatility but this intervention is neither continuous nor linear. It is better described by a nonlinear policy reaction function with a target range as opposed to a point target. It responds much more vigorously to appreciating or depreciating pressure outside the target range but the response is much more muted within the range. Moreover, the tolerance band is asymmetric i.e., the RBI responds much more strongly to appreciating pressure than depreciating pressure. Such a policy response in an era of continuous net capital inflows accounts for the large build-up in foreign exchange reserves witnessed in India in the recent past.     

Exchange Rate Targeting and Gold Demand by Central Banks: Modeling International Reserves Composition

This article explores the composition of international reserves under a central bank’s exchange rate policy target. The model allows for numerical estimation of a shadow price of the target exchange rate, interpreted as the central bank’s sacrifice of policy precision for additional unit of portfolio variance or return. The simulations indicate a percentage range gold demand by monetary authority in two regimes under multiple equilibria. Accumulating foreign reserves as precautionary policy suggests increasing shares of gold demand. The central bank would incur greater exchange rate target sacrifice if it wants to achieve higher portfolio returns. The results suggest that ability to target the exchange rate is unaffected by the higher volatility of monthly returns on gold.     

The cost of a central bank leaning against a random walk

Using a stochastic model we show that a central bank is expected to suffer a loss when it temporarily affects the exchange rate by sterilized intervention against a random walk. We also demonstrate that the methodology used in several studies of the profitability of official central bank intervention biases their results towards finding positive profits. This bias, created by only observing periods where cumulative intervention sums to zero, accounts for the seemingly contradictory empirical results of several intervention profitability studies.     

A structural threshold model of the exchange rate under optimal intervention

By considering a social trade-off between targeting the exchange rate and minimizing intervention costs, nonlinear exchange rate dynamics can be captured by a structural threshold model. This article provides a theory-based empirical exchange rate model and shows how to put the model into an empirical investigation. To estimate the structural threshold model, we propose a two-step procedure which separately estimates the permanent and temporary fundamentals of the foreign exchange market. A demonstration of our approach is applied to 1981Q3-2008Q3 Taiwan’s foreign exchange market, with a brief review of its monetary policies and central bank given prior. Estimation results are consistent with theoretical predictions and many intervention operations of Taiwan’s central bank are successfully identified.     

Do jumps mislead the FX market?

This paper investigates the link between jumps in the exchange rate process and rumours of central bank interventions. Using the case of Japan, we analyse specifically whether jumps trigger false reports of intervention (i.e. an intervention is reported when it did not occur). Intraday jumps are extracted using a non-parametric technique recently proposed by Lee and Mykland in 2008 and by Andersen et al. in 2007, and later modified by Boudt et al. in 2011. Rumours are identified by using a unique database of Reuters and Dow Jones newswires. Our results suggest that a significant number of jumps on the YEN/USD have been falsely interpreted by the market as being the result of a central bank intervention. The paper has policy implications in terms of central bank interventions. We show that in times where the central bank is known to intervene, some investors may attach a lot of weight to central bank interventions as a source of exchange rate movement, leading to a false ‘intervention explanation’ for observed jumps.     

Central bank intervention and the volatility of foreign exchange rates: evidence from the options market

This paper tests the effects of central bank intervention on the ex ante volatility of $/DM and $/yen exchange rates between 1985 and 1991. In contrast to previous research which employed GARCH estimates of conditional volatility, we estimate ex ante volatility using the implied volatilities of currency option prices. We also control for the effects of other macroeconomic announcements. We find little support for the hypothesis that central bank intervention decreases expected exchange rate volatility. Instead, central bank intervention is generally associated with a positive change in ex ante exchange rate volatility, or with no change.     

央行汇市干预的效果与经验

外汇市场干预是大多数国家央行管理汇率的主要手段。2008年全球金融危机以及其后的欧美债务危机,使得金融市场动荡加剧,外汇市场因避险资金的流动也日益不平静,央行的汇市干预在目标、方式、效果、影响等方面部呈现出一些新的特点,文章对此进行回顾和总结,并从将外汇干预作为宏观调控的组成部分、变被动干预为主动干预以及扩展干预模式等方面,就进一步完善央行汇市干预方式提出政策建议。     

Changing Monetary Policy Rules, Learning, and Real Exchange Rate Dynamics

When the exchange rate is priced by uncovered interest parity and central banks set nominal interest rates according to a reaction function such as the Taylor rule, the real exchange rate will be determined by expected inflation and the output gap or the unemployment gap of the home and foreign countries. This paper examines the implications of these Taylor rule fundamentals for real exchange rate determination. Because the true parameters in central bank policy rules are unknown to the public and change over time, the model is presented in the context of a least squares learning environment. This simple learning model captures the volatility and the major swings in the real deutschemark/euro–dollar exchange rate from 1976 to 2007.     

Central bank FOREX interventions assessed using realized moments

This paper assesses the impact of G3 official central bank interventions on daily realized moments of DEM/USD exchange rate returns obtained from intraday data, 1989–2001. Event studies of the realized moments for the intervention day, the days preceding and following the intervention illustrate the shape of this impact. Rolling regressions results for an AR(FI)MA model for realized moments are used to measure the impact and its significance. The analysis confirms previous empirical findings of a temporary increase of volatility after a coordinated central bank intervention. It highlights new findings on the timing and the temporary nature of the impact of coordinated interventions on exchange rate volatility and on cross-moments between foreign exchange markets.     

人民币外汇市场压力与央行外汇干预的经验估计

本文采用Weymark指数法估计了1994年来我国面临的外汇市场压力和央行外汇干预指数,实证结果显示1994年来人民币一直面临着升值压力,样本期间中央银行平均干预指数为0.97,说明我国央行实行的是强势干预政策以保持人民币汇率的稳定。利用人民币外汇市场压力指数对我国潜在货币危机的研究表明,2005年人民币汇率改革之后,人民币面临的外汇市场压力过度了,存在货币危机的可能性。     

Evaluating foreign exchange market intervention: Self-selection,counterfactuals and average treatment effects

Estimating the effect of official foreign exchange market intervention is complicated by the fact that intervention at any point entails a “self-selection” choice made by the authorities and that no counterfactual is observed. To address these issues, we estimate the “counterfactual” exchange rate movement in the absence of intervention by introducing the method of propensity-score matching to estimate the “average treatment effect” (ATE) of intervention. To derive the propensity scores we estimate central bank intervention reaction functions. We estimate the ATE for daily official intervention in Japan over the January 1999–March 2004 period. This sample encompasses a remarkable variation in intervention frequencies as well as unprecedented frequent intervention towards the latter part of the period. We find that only sporadic and relatively infrequent intervention is effective.     

The effectiveness of foreign exchange intervention in Latin America: A nonlinear approach to the coordination channel

This paper examines the effectiveness of the coordination channel of foreign exchange intervention in Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, and Peru. The theoretical approach is based on a model in which traders' confidence in the fundamentals depends on exchange rate misalignments and central bank intervention. The presence of the monetary authority in the foreign exchange market may increase traders' confidence and speed up the mean reversion of the exchange rates. The empirical section of this paper is based on a Smooth Transition Regression GARCH-M model. The results suggest that foreign exchange intervention via the coordination channel has been effective over the period 2000–2013.     

Relationships among exchange rates, intervention, and interest rates: An empirical investigation

This study uses herefore unavailable daily data on official intervention to test the joint hypotheses of perfect asset substitutability and exchange market efficiency. This joint hypothesis is generally soundly rejected for six exchange rates over various sample periods. In contrast to evidence elsewhere from weekly or monthly data, lagged intervention is a significant determinant of realized profits in about half the cases; this evidence is consistent with existence of a portfolio-balance channel, at least in the short-run. Other evidence indicates that coordinated intervention sometimes may have an impact significantly different from intervention by one central bank alone.     

开放经济下的“双支柱”调控稳定效应研究

本文研究了管理浮动汇率制下我国货币政策和宏观审慎政策双支柱的调控稳定效应。首先,本文从实证层面考察了人民币汇率升贬值对央行货币政策的非对称影响。接着,本文构建了包含银行部门与货币错配的开放宏观经济模型,重点分析了在面对美联储加息、人民币贬值压力的情况下,货币政策(包括对汇率的反应)和宏观审慎政策(对外债的逆周期调节)的配合如何影响宏观经济和金融的稳定。结论表明,如果缺少宏观审慎政策的配合,货币政策对汇率的反应将导致产出、通货膨胀和资产价格等经济金融变量的波动增大。在存在宏观审慎政策的前提下,相对于完全浮动汇率制,管理浮动汇率制从中长期看能进一步促进产出和外债等核心变量的稳定。     

中央银行沟通、实际干预与通货膨胀稳定

近年来,中央银行沟通已成为一种重要的货币政策工具。本文把中央银行沟通因素引入修正的卢卡斯总供给函数,发现加大中央银行沟通力度有利于引导通货膨胀预期,稳定通货膨胀。采用2003-2009年月度数据,利用结构向量自回归方法对中央银行沟通及实际干预在稳定通货膨胀中的作用进行实证研究,主要结论如下:(1)正的中央银行沟通冲击能有效降低通货膨胀预期以及名义通货膨胀率,且时滞短;(2)正的实际干预(包括银行贷款利率、央票利率及货币供应量)冲击,在短期内不但不能降低通货膨胀预期及名义通货膨胀率,反而会加剧通货膨胀,出现"价格之谜"现象。此外,本文对大多数情况下我国中央银行沟通模棱两可的合理性进行了解释。     

基于IV-GARCH模型的外汇干预有效性实证研究

外汇干预有效性评估历来都是外汇干预决策、实施及评估过程中的关键性问题,对于汇率政策的制定具有重要意义。本文通过拟合央行外汇干预反应函数,构造出合理有效的工具变量,进而修正GARCH模型在评估外汇干预有效性中的偏误。实证结果表明,1993～2004年间日本央行外汇干预操作由侧重调控汇率偏离水平,逐渐向压制短期内剧烈的负向波动转移;虽然抑制或扭转了日元相对美元的中短期升值,但却不可避免地增加了汇率波动,带来额外的货币风险。     

Central bank intervention

This special issue of the Journal of International Finance, Institutions and Money contains 11 articles that consider aspects of central bank intervention. It is particularly timely to publish such a special issue since the topic of central bank intervention has been an important issue in international finance during the last decade. Monetary policy, trading rules, econometric evidence of the effects of intervention on exchange rates and future direction on research in this area constitute the sections in this special issue.