Crossing the lines: The conditional relation between exchange rate exposure and stock returns in emerging and developed markets

This paper examines the importance of exchange rate exposure in the return generating process for a large sample of non-financial firms from 37 countries. We argue that the effect of exchange rate exposure on stock returns is conditional and show evidence of a significant return impact to firm-level currency exposures when conditioning on the exchange rate change. We further show that the realized return to exposure is directly related to the size and sign of the exchange rate change, suggesting fluctuations in exchange rates as a source of time-variation in currency return premia. For the entire sample the return impact ranges from 1.2 to 3.3% per unit of currency exposure, and it is larger for firms in emerging markets compared to developed markets. Overall, the results indicate that foreign exchange rate exposure estimates are economically meaningful, despite the fact that individual time-series results are noisy and many exposures are not statistically significant, and that exchange rate exposure plays an important role in generating cross-sectional return variation. Moreover, we show that the relation between exchange rate exposure and stock returns is more consistent with a cash flow effect than a discount rate effect.     

A theory of optimal expropriation, mergers and industry competition

We model a competitive industry where managers choose quantities and costs to maximize a combination of firm profits and benefits from expropriation. Expropriation is possible because of corporate governance ‘slack’ permitted by the government. We show that corporate governance slack induces managers to choose levels of output and costs that are higher than would otherwise be optimal. This, in turn, benefits consumers - the equilibrium price is lower - and other stakeholders such as suppliers and employees. Depending on the government’s social welfare objective, less-than-perfect investor protection can be optimal. We show why some mechanisms suggested by the literature as improving investor protection - legal change, cross-listing, domestic mergers - may not be effective. We provide a theoretical argument showing the efficacy of cross-border mergers. The stronger corporate governance of a foreign acquirer, imposed on the domestic target firm, benefits merging shareholders and those of competing unmerged domestic firms.     

Resolving the exposure puzzle: The many facets of exchange rate exposure

Theory predicts sizeable exchange rate (FX) exposure for many firms. However, empirical research has not documented such exposures. To examine this discrepancy, we extend prior theoretical results to model a global firm's FX exposure and show empirically that firms pass through part of currency changes to customers and utilize both operational and financial hedges. For a typical sample firm, pass-through and operational hedging each reduce exposure by 10–15%. Financial hedging with foreign debt, and to a lesser extent FX derivatives, decreases exposure by about 40%. The combination of these factors reduces FX exposures to observed levels.     

Estimating systemic risk in the international financial system

This paper develops three distinct methods to quantify the risk of a systemic failure in the global banking system. We examine a sample of 334 banks (representing 80% of global bank equity) in 28 countries around five global financial crises. Our results suggest statistically significant, but economically small, increases in systemic risk. Although policy responses are endogenous, the low estimated probabilities suggest that the distress of central bankers, regulators and politicians about the events we study could be overstated and that current policy responses to financial crises could be adequate to handle major macroeconomic events.     

What lies beneath: Foreign exchange rate exposure,hedging and cash flows

This paper presents results from an in-depth analysis of the foreign exchange rate exposure of a large nonfinancial firm based on proprietary internal data including cash flows, derivatives and foreign currency debt, as well as external capital market data. While the operations of the multinational firm have significant exposure to foreign exchange rate risk due to foreign currency-based activities and international competition, corporate hedging mitigates this gross exposure. The analysis illustrates that the insignificance of foreign exchange rate exposures of comprehensive performance measures such as total cash flow can be explained by hedging at the firm level. Thus, the residual net exposure is economically and statistically small, even if the operating cash flows of the firm are significantly exposed to exchange rate risk. The results of the paper suggest that managers of nonfinancial firms with operations exposed to foreign exchange rate risk take savvy actions to reduce exposure to a level too low to allow its detection empirically.     

Bounds and prices of currency cross-rate options

This paper derives the pricing bounds of a currency cross-rate option using the option prices of two related dollar rates via a copula theory and presents the analytical properties of the bounds under the Gaussian framework. Our option pricing bounds are useful, because (1) they are general in the sense that they do not rely on the distribution assumptions of the state variables or on the selection of the copula function; (2) they are portfolios of the dollar-rate options and hence are potential hedging instruments for cross-rate options; and (3) they can be applied to generate bounds on deltas. The empirical tests suggest that there are persistent and stable relationships between the market prices and the estimated bounds of the cross-rate options and that our option pricing bounds (obtained from the market prices of options on two dollar rates) and the historical correlation of two dollar rates are highly informative for explaining the prices of the cross-rate options. Moreover, the empirical results are consistent with the predictions of the analytical properties under the Gaussian framework and are robust in various aspects.     

Country risk and financial integration—A case study of South Africa

This paper examines the importance of economic factors in a time-varying beta model of country risk before and after the occurrence of financial integration for South Africa's stock market. We examine how fundamental economic factors impact the variation of South Africa's country risk over the period 1993-2008. We find that exchange rates and gold prices are significant economic variables that induce significant volatility in South Africa's beta during the pre-financial integration period through June 1998. Post-financial integration, South Africa's beta rises and fundamental economic factors cease to be significant in determining its variation, a result consistent with an integrated financial market.     

Who benefits from capital account liberalization? Evidence from firm-level credit ratings data

Using a novel panel data set on corporate foreign-currency credit ratings and capital account restrictions in advanced and emerging economies during 1995–2004, we find a strong positive effect of capital account liberalization on firms' credit risk, as measured by corporate credit ratings. As an identification strategy, we exploit within-country variation in firms' ability to obtain foreign currency and, thus, their ability to repay foreign currency debt. We find that liberalizing the capital account benefits significantly more those firms with more limited foreign currency access, namely, those producing nontradables. Our findings demonstrate a novel channel through which capital account restrictions affect economic outcomes, and they are robust to a broad range of alternative specifications.     

Can hedging tell the full story? Reconciling differences in United States aggregate- and industry-level exchange rate risk premium

While the importance of currency movements to industry competitiveness is theoretically well established, there is little evidence that currency risk impacts US industries. Applying a conditional asset pricing model to 36 US industries, we find that all industries have a significant currency premium that adds about 2.47 percentage points to the cost of equity and accounts for approximately 11.7% of total risk premium in absolute value. Cross-industry variation in the currency premium is explained by foreign income, industry competitiveness, leverage, liquidity, and other industry characteristics, while its time variation is explained by US aggregate foreign trade, monetary policy, growth opportunities, and other macro variables. The results indicate that methodological weakness, not hedging, explains the insignificant industry currency risk premium found in previous work, thus resolving the puzzle that currency risk premium is important at the aggregate stock market level, but not at the industry level.     

The performance of newly privatized firms in selected MENA countries: The role of ownership structure, governance and liberalization policies

The paper analyzes 95 newly privatized firms (NPFs) in four Middle Eastern and North African countries (Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia, and Turkey). We find that these firms experienced significant increases in profitability and operating efficiency, and significant declines in employment and leverage. We also document strong performance improvements for firms that did remain state-owned, that were not sold to foreigners, and that came from Egypt. Job losses are higher in Egypt and in firms where the state is no longer in control. Also, the results indicate that revenue firms and NPFs in Morocco display significantly less leverage than control firms and those from other countries. We find that profitability changes are negatively related to state control and positively related to foreign ownership. Trade openness, change in real GDP over the privatization window, index of investor protection, and foreign ownership are important determinants of the changes in sales efficiency and output. These findings suggest that NPFs become more productive in environments where property rights are better protected and enforced and that foreign investors influence firms' productivity through their monitoring role.     

The U.S. left behind? Financial globalization and the rise of IPOs outside the U.S.

From 1990 to 2011, the share of world IPO activity by non-U.S. firms increased because of financial globalization and because of a decrease in U.S. IPO activity. Financial globalization reduces the impact of national institutions on domestic IPO activity and enables more non-U.S. firms from countries with weak institutions to go public with a global IPO. U.S. IPO activity does not benefit from financial globalization. Compared to other countries, the rate of small-firm IPO activity in the U.S. is abnormally low in the 2000s. This abnormally low rate cannot be explained by the regulatory changes of the early 2000s.     

The optimal currency basket under vertical trade

This paper explores the theory of optimal currency basket in a small open economy general equilibrium model with sticky prices. In contrast to existing literature, we focus on an economy with vertical trade, where the currencies in the basket may play different roles in invoicing trade flow. In a simple two-currency basket, one currency is used to invoice imported intermediate goods and is called “import currency”, while the other currency is used to invoice exported finished goods and is called “export currency”. We find that the optimal weights of the import currency and the export currency depends critically on the structure of vertical trade. Moreover, if a country decides to choose a single-currency peg, the choice of pegging currency also depends on how other competing economies respond to external exchange rate fluctuations.     

An event study of institutions and currency crises

We use event study methodology to examine the behavior of seven institutional variables eighteen months prior to and after a currency crisis. Our data on institutions include bureaucratic quality, corruption, ethnic tensions, external conflict, internal conflict, government stability, and law and order over the period 1984-2002. Our country coverage includes forty industrial, emerging market, and developing economies for various regions of the world. The graphical event study shows that there are many instances where institutions are weaker in periods before and after a currency crisis than during tranquil periods. The evidence is most compelling for government stability, law and order, bureaucratic quality, and corruption. We also test for differences in the mean values of institutional variables in turbulent periods around a crisis event and tranquil, non-crisis periods. Results from our tests generally complement evidence from the event study.     

Volatile and persistent real exchange rates with or without sticky prices

The flexible-price two-country monetary model is extended to include a consumption externality with habit persistence. Two methodologies are employed to explore this model's ability to generate volatile and persistent exchange rates. In the first, actual data is used for the exogenous driving processes. In the second, the model is simulated using estimated forcing processes. The theory, in both cases, is capable of explaining the high volatility and persistence of real and nominal exchange rates as well as the high correlation between real and nominal rates.     

Nominal exchange rate volatility,relative price volatility,and the real exchange rate

We model real exchange rate, nominal exchange rate, and relative price volatility using real and nominal factors. We analyze these volatility measures across developing and industrialized countries. We find that the inclusion of nominal factors achieves a sizable reduction in the real exchange rate volatility spread between developing and industrialized countries. In addition, we find that nominal factors matter to real exchange rate volatility in the short run and the long run, and that for developing countries, a higher share of real exchange rate volatility stems from relative price volatility.