Do Monetary Policy Announcements Affect Exchange Rate Returns and Volatility of Returns? Some Evidence from High‐Frequency Intra‐Day South African Data

This paper examines the temporal effect of domestic monetary policy surprises on both returns and volatility of returns of the South African rand/U.S. dollar exchange rate. The analysis in this “event study” proceeds using intra‐day minute‐by‐minute exchange rate data, repo rate data from the South African Reserve Bank's scheduled monetary policy announcements, and market consensus repo rate forecasts. A carefully selected sample over the period August 2003 to November 2017 ensures that the change in monetary policy is exogenous to the exchange rate. We find statistically and economically significant responses in intra‐day high‐frequency South African rand/U.S. dollar exchange rate returns and volatility of exchange rate returns to domestic interest rate surprises, but anticipated changes have no bearing on exchange rate returns and their volatility. The empirical results also indicate that there is an instantaneous response of the rand/dollar exchange rate to monetary policy surprises and that monetary policy news is an important determinant of the exchange rate until at least 42 minutes after the pronouncement – suggesting a high degree of market “efficiency” in its mechanical sense (although not necessarily in the deeper economic‐informational sense) in processing this information. Essentially, the asymmetric GARCH results exhibit no leverage effects – positive and negative information shocks have symmetric effects on conditional variance.     

Monetary Policies versus Regulatory Policies: Management of Peer to Peer Market Interest Rates

This paper studies how monetary and regulatory policies manage peer to peer (P2P) interest rates. Based on selected representative monetary and regulatory policies, this paper finds that easy monetary policies reduce the demand for online loans, thus reducing the market's interest rates. Monetary policies may increase the supply of online loans through rational expectation channels or reduce the demand for online loans through bank risk‐taking channels. Normative market‐based regulatory policy enables the P2P market to return to rationality, eliminates high‐risk investors and borrowers, and subsequently reduces market interest rates. Risk disposal‐based regulatory policy reduces market supply to some extent, resulting in a small increase in interest rates. Both easy monetary policies and regulatory policies have a great impact on the normal platforms. The interest rate of high‐risk platforms is less affected by the relevant policies, which is evidence that such platforms do not behave in accordance with the financial rules in general. Monetary policies mainly affect platforms with interest rates in a relatively normal range, while regulatory policies mainly focus on platforms with abnormal interest rates.     

The Impact of Monetary and Commodity Fundamentals,Macro News and Central Bank Communication on the Exchange Rate: Evidence from South Africa

This paper studies drivers of high-frequency (daily) dynamics of the South African rand vis-à-vis the dollar from January 2001 to July 2007. We find strong nonlinear effects of commodity prices, perceived country and emerging market risk premium and changes in the dollar-euro exchange rate on changes in daily returns of the rand-dollar exchange rate. We also identify a one-sided nonlinear mean reversion to the long-term monetary equilibrium. In addition we establish very short-lived effects on the exchange rate of selected macroeconomic surprises and central bank communication aimed at talking up the rand.     

Canadian Interest Rate Setting: The Information Content of Canadian and U.S. Central Bank Communication

We explain Canadian target rate decisions using macroeconomic variables as well as Bank of Canada and Federal Reserve communication indicators. Econometrically, we employ an ordered probit model of a Taylor rule to explain and predict 60 target rate decisions between 1998 and 2006. We find that communications, especially speeches and testimony by Canadian Governing Council members, provide a significant and robust explanation of Canadian target rate decisions. However, prior to the introduction of fixed announcement dates, Canadian communications contained more information on upcoming policy moves. Finally, communications by the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank—which are much more frequent—outperform our Canadian communication indicators in explaining Canadian interest rate decisions.     

美国现行宽松货币政策对世界物价的影响——基于不同经济体通货膨胀表现的分析

美国2007年年底开始大幅下调利率,2009年以来又采取了量化宽松的货币政策。与此同时,世界各国,尤其是新兴市场和发展中经济体发生了严重的通货膨胀。虽然美国的宽松货币政策确实提高了2008年以来的通货膨胀率,但是却不能解释新兴市场和发展中经济的通货膨胀普遍高于发达经济体的事实。高通胀的原因仍然在于各国国内的高货币供给。     

美国量化宽松政策对新兴经济体股票市场价格的影响

2008年金融危机后美国采取量化宽松货币政策造成大量流动性进入新兴经济体股票市场。通过建立面板VAR模型,运用脉冲响应函数和方差分解技术分析了美国货币供应M1、股票市场以及联邦基金利率透过汇率、利率和预期方式对新兴经济体股票市场价格指数产生的影响。结果表明,美国量化宽松货币政策对新兴经济体股票市场价格具有正向溢出效应,利率渠道影响效果显著。     

Fed funds futures and the news

The objective of this paper is to determine whether the observed variation in the response of market interest rates over the 1990s to the news about employment is a result, at least in part, of changes in expectations for monetary policy. Fed funds futures rates, which embody predictions for the expected monthly average of the daily effective funds rate, are used to capture market participants' expectations for monetary policy in the face of employment surprises. It is found that unanticipated employment announcements have a positive and statistically significant impact on one- and three-month-ahead fed funds futures rates and the size of the impact declines over the 1990s, thereby coinciding with a noticeable decline in the frequency of adjustment in the fed funds target rate.     

International spillovers of U.S. monetary uncertainty and equity market volatility to China’s stock markets

Due to the global economy that is currently being increasingly integrated and liberalized, the cross-country transmission of U.S. monetary policy surprises has become a critical issue attracting scholarly attention. This research thus extends the existing literature by assessing the causal linkages among U.S. monetary policy uncertainty (USMPU), equity market volatility, and China’s stock price index over the period from January 1994 to August 2021. We apply Granger causality in quantile analysis to explore the relationships in each quantile of the distribution in a comprehensible manner. The results indicate that equity market volatility and China’s stock price dynamics play little role in affecting USMPU. We also find that only greater changes in both positive monetary policy uncertainty and stock prices lead to changes in equity market volatility. Furthermore, fluctuations in monetary policy uncertainty and equity market volatility in the United States Granger-cause China’s stock prices. Knowing such causality results could prevent market participants from adopting a one-size-fits-all strategy.     

The Stock Market,Monetary Policy,and Economic Development

In this article, we examine the impact of financial market development on the level of economic development. In particular, we explore this issue in a setting where individuals face idiosyncratic risk. Incomplete information also provides a transaction role for money so that monetary policy can be studied. While an active banking sector promotes risk sharing, we incorporate a market for equity by allowing individuals to trade capital across generations. In this manner, each asset and financial market in our model fulfills a distinct economic function. Consistent with recent empirical work, we find that the impact of access to a stock market may be indeterminate—the economy may respond with significant gains in capital accumulation and risk sharing, or there may be relatively little impact. We also show that the effects of monetary policy vary across the level of financial development. In economies with small stock markets, increasing the amount of liquidity will cause capital accumulation to decline. By comparison, in advanced economies, capital accumulation improves.     

Lessons of the crisis for emerging markets

This paper analyzes the impact of the global financial crisis on emerging markets. It argues that the crisis will have enduring implications for policy toward the development and liberalization of financial markets. In particular, emerging markets will rely (even) less on external finance and adopt a less permissive approach to foreign bank presence. In contrast, the crisis will have a much more limited impact on other aspects of globalization. More controversially, the paper argues that the crisis is unlikely to have a major impact on the structure of the international monetary system.     

Credibility and monetary policy in a model with growth

We examine the implications for monetary policy design of includinglearning-by-doing effects in a macroeconomic model. We showthat an inflation bias arises because monetary surprises maybe exploited to maximise potential output by temporarily raisingthe rate of human capital accumulation. Our model also providesan alternative explanation for the empirical evidence linkinginflation and growth, where the causal link goes from slow growthto high inflation. Unlike traditional credibility models, aninflationary bias can persist even when the authorities do notwish to offset labour market distortions through monetary surpriseswhich undercut the median voter's income.     

基于金融稳定目标的规则型货币政策研究

随着货币政策与金融稳定之间联系的不断深化，中央银行理应在防范金融市场系统性风险中发挥重要的作用。文章首先构建我国金融稳定指数，并将其加入线性货币政策规则，研究结果表明，中央银行在调整名义利率时的确对金融稳定状况有所关注，相比于传统泰勒规则，纳入金融稳定指数的泰勒规则中通胀系数与产出缺口系数均有显著改善，其能够更好地拟合中央银行的实际政策操作。随后，为了进一步考察货币当局对名义利率调整的动态变化特征，文章通过TVP-SV-VAR模型对拓展的时变参数泰勒规则进行了再估计。研究发现，随着经济周期和金融形势的更迭，中央银行也会不断动态调整其政策目标。其中，货币政策对通货膨胀的调控不存在明显的惰性区域，控制通胀始终是中央银行工作的重心。其次，中央银行存在规避经济收缩的偏好，在经济下行时期其对货币政策的调整会向产出缺口倾斜。最后，为了抑制金融机构的过度风险承担，货币当局在本次金融危机之后显著增强了对于金融稳定的关注。     

Commodity Prices, Inflationary Pressures, and Monetary Policy: Evidence from BRICS Economies

We assess the transmission of monetary policy and the impact of fluctuations in commodity prices on the real economy for the five biggest and fastest growing emerging market economies: Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS). Using modern econometric techniques, we show that a monetary policy contraction has a negative effect on output, suggesting that it can lean against unexpected macroeconomic shocks even when the financial markets are not well-developed in this group of countries. We also uncover the importance of commodity price shocks, which lead to a rise in inflation and demand an aggressive behaviour from central banks towards inflation stabilisation.     

Estimating time-varying currency betas with contagion: New evidence from developed and emerging financial markets

This paper examines the conditional time-varying currency betas from five developed and six emerging financial markets with contagion and spillover effects. We employ a trivariate asymmetric BEKK-type GARCH-in-Mean (MGARCH-M) approach to estimate the time-varying conditional variance and covariance of returns of stock market index, the world market portfolio and bilateral exchange rate between the US dollar and the local currency. The results show that the world market and currency risks are not only priced in the stock markets, but also time-varying. It is found that currency betas are much more volatile than the world market betas, and currency betas in the emerging markets are more volatile than those in the developed markets. We find empirical evidence of contagion effect and spillovers between stock market and foreign exchange market during the recent global financial crisis, and the effect is stronger in the emerging markets than that in the developed markets. Two applications are provided to illustrate the usefulness of time-varying currency betas.     

Does bank competition affect the transmission mechanism of monetary policy through bank lending channel? Evidence from India

This paper empirically investigates how intensified competition in the Indian banking affects the transmission of monetary policy through bank lending channel over the period 1997–2017. Additionally, this study examines the impact of deposit and loan market channels on bank’s credit growth. Results obtained through two-step system-GMM reveal that a higher degree of market power weakens the monetary policy transmission mechanism for the entire banking industry and across ownerships. Results show that higher market power in the deposit and loan markets weakens the impact of monetary policy on bank loan supply. The findings of this study extend important policy measures that can strengthen the transmission mechanism of monetary policy by reducing the adverse effects of changes in bank competition.     

Can central bank communication effectively guide the monetary policy expectation of the public?

Central bank communication helps to optimize monetary policy. Therefore, it is essential to study whether central bank communication can effectively guide expectations via various communication methods. We study central bank communication in China using the events collected from its official websites and social media, and we divide them into formal and informal communications. We use the high-frequency quotation data of treasury bonds to identify monetary policy surprise caused by communication, which is measured by the target and path surprise. Then, we evaluate the forward-looking and backward-looking effectiveness of central bank communications. We show that central bank communications can help guide public expectations, but different topics and different forms of communication have heterogeneous effects. Forward guidance carries both potential benefits and drawbacks. It is worth noting that China's current central bank communications may have certain potential to be improved.     

超越东亚模式:金融危机中的东亚与中国

东亚发展模式在这次由美国次贷危机引发的全球金融危机中暴露出严重的局限性,其依靠投入与出口拉动的经济增长模式形成了对美国市场、美元及美国金融的高度依赖,使得本次危机透过金融渠道、货币渠道以及商品渠道对东亚经济体造成前所未有的冲击。东亚国家与地区应以这次危机为契机,调整其传统的经济发展模式,即通过体制机制创新来建立以技术进步和效率提升为动力,内需主导与外需相结合的全面促进经济发展的新模式。同时,加强区域合作,形成亚洲区域内经济循环机制,以期有效缓解外部冲击。     

International monetary arrangements in the Asia-Pacific before and after

This paper assesses the characteristics and policy implications of the international monetary arrangements in the Asia-Pacific pre- and post-July 1997. It first examines the literature on speculative attacks on fixed and managed exchange rate regimes. Since these speculative attacks are more likely to be successful when financial markets are well integrated, it then assesses the degree of financial market integration in the region. Furthermore, as the empirical evidence also suggests a possible role for real exchange rate overvaluation, we examine the evidence regarding misalignment. Using a purchasing power parity (PPP) criterion and a criterion based on a Balassa-Samuelson model, we find mixed evidence of exchange rate overvaluation. Given that our ability to determine the equilibrium real exchange rate is so limited, we caution against a return to a fixed or highly managed exchange rate regime. Finally, we assess how monetary policy and exchange rate policy have interacted over the pre- and post-crisis periods, using a monetary model of exchange rates. JEL classification: F31; F33; F34     

REGIONAL INTEGRATION OF EQUITY MARKETS IN SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA

Equity markets in developing and emerging economies have grown in number and importance as a result of financial market globalisation. However, their role in economic growth and development is enhanced if nascent markets are integrated with well‐established ones. Market integration, measured by the transmission of returns volatility, is identified across a sample of SSA countries, using a unique dataset. Evidence for potential integration between financial markets in Sub‐Saharan Africa (SSA) is found. Spillovers are found across markets, some unidirectional and others bi‐directional. However, continued illiquidity and incomplete institutions indicate that an integrated financial community remains premature, and considerable regulatory reform and harmonisation will be necessary for this to succeed.     

Effectiveness of monetary policy and limited asset market participation: Neoclassical versus Keynesian effects

This paper investigates the effects of limited asset market participation on the effectiveness of monetary policy in a New Keynesian Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium model. Although an increase in consumers who cannot access financial markets reduces the effects of interest rate policies through consumption inter-temporal allocation (neoclassical or permanent income effect), we find an opposite result: monetary policy becomes more effective as the degree of financial market participation falls. The reason has a very Keynesian flavor.