Overnight exchange rate risk based on multi-quantile and joint-shock CAViaR models

Overnight risk of exchange rate is more and more important because the exchange rate trading time of various countries is inconsistent. Drawing on the multi-quantile CAViaR model for two markets, this study proposes a multi-quantile CAViaR model for three markets and a multi-quantile CAViaR model for joint shock. The two new models are used to measure the impact of the U.S. Dollar index and the Euro on the overnight risk for the exchange rate of the Japanese Yen, Hong Kong Dollar, and Chinese Renminbi. The results show that, first, a lag risk affects the overnight risk of the three exchange rates, of which the Renminbi exchange rate is subject to the largest risk. Second, the U.S. Dollar index and Euro exchange rate risks impact the overnight risk of the three exchange rates and this effect is highest for the overnight risk of the Yen's exchange rate. In addition, the impact of the U.S.Dollar index risk is greater than that of the Euro. Third, the Euro and U.S.Dollar index produce a joint shock on the overnight risk of the three exchange rates, and here, the Yen's exchange rate suffers the biggest shock. Finally, the multi-quantile CAViaR model for joint shock is more accurate than that for three markets, particularly when the Hong Kong Dollar exchange rate has a 5% VaR. These empirical results have meaningful implications for regulatory authorities.     

The relationship between stock prices and exchange rates in South Africa and Nigeria: structural breaks analysis

The relationship between stock prices and exchange rates has continued to generate interest from both the academia and financial industry players for many years. This study conducts an empirical investigation into the relationship between stock prices and exchange rates for the two largest economies in Sub-Saharan Africa – South Africa and Nigeria. Our methodology accounts for structural breaks in the data and the long-run relationship between stock and foreign exchange markets. The results of multivariate causality tests with structural breaks showed that causality runs from exchange rates to domestic stock prices in Nigeria (flow channel) while in South Africa, no causality exists between domestic stock prices and exchange rates. The results also reveal that there is causality from the London stock market to both countries’ stock markets, thus showing that international stock markets are driving both the Nigerian and South African stock markets.     

IS THE MARKET FAILING AGRICULTURAL PRODUCERS WHO WISH TO MANAGE RISKS?

The variability of producers ‘net income levels is largely a function of variability in output price, yield, and input prices. Yet, the tools available to manage price risk and yield risk are not widely used by producers. Is the market failing to provide agricultural producers with effective risk management tools? To identify producers’ needs, the paper establishes the relative importance of price and yield risk by decomposing the variability of revenues from a sample of crops in California agriculture. The risk tools available to producers of those commodities are compared to producers needs for tools. Results indicate that “market failure” is readily apparent in markets for tools to manage risks. However, the nature of these missing or incomplete markets does not necessarily imply inefficiencies that would justify government intervention.     

Foreign equity option pricing under stochastic volatility model with double jumps

This paper considers the challenging problem advocated by Huang and Hung (2005), that is to incorporate the stochastic volatility into the foreign equity option pricing. Foreign equity options (quanto options) are contingent claims where the payoff is determined by an equity in one currency but the actual payoff is done in another currency. Huang and Hung (2005) priced foreign equity options under the Lévy processes. In Huang and Hung's paper, they considered jumps in the foreign asset prices and exchange rates and assumed the volatility as constant. However, many studies showed that constant volatility and jumps in returns are incapable of fully capturing the empirical features of equity returns or option prices. In this paper, the stochastic volatility with simultaneous jumps in prices and volatility is proposed to model foreign asset prices and exchange rates. The foreign equity option pricing formula is given by using the Fourier inverse transformation. The numerical results show that the use of stochastic volatility with simultaneous jumps in prices and volatility proposed to model foreign asset prices and exchange rates is necessary and this approach can help us to capture more accurately the foreign equity option prices.     

Real exchange rates,asset prices and terms of trade: A theoretical analysis

This paper develops a continuous-time two-country dynamic equilibrium model, in which the real exchange rates, asset prices, and terms of trade are jointly determined in the presence of nontradable goods. The model determines the relation between the financial markets and real goods markets in the world economy and their responses to various shocks under the home bias assumption. A positive domestic supply shock induces a positive return on the domestic asset markets and a deterioration of terms of trade that improves the foreign output and boosts the foreign asset markets. Demand shocks act in the opposite way. This model also analyses the impact of change in the relative price of nontradable to tradable goods on the terms of trade and asset markets. A higher productivity growth in tradable goods than in nontradable goods leads to a higher relative price of nontradable to tradable goods, which appreciates the real exchange rate, deteriorates the terms of trade, and depresses the domestic and foreign asset markets. A lower relative price of nontradable goods depreciates the real exchange rate, improves the terms of trade, and lifts both the domestic and foreign asset markets.     

Estimates of foreign exchange risk premia: a pricing kernel approach

The goal of this study is to measure market prices of risk and foreign exchange risk premia. Estimations of minimum variance pricing kernels permit to determine market prices of risk, which, in an international no-arbitrage framework, allow to measure foreign exchange risk premia. Market prices of risk are time-varying and surge during financial turmoils. Foreign exchange risk premia are on average small in comparison to interest rate differentials and exhibit significant variation from the early 1970s onwards, when the Bretton Woods exchange rate system collapsed. At times, foreign exchange risk premia dominate interest rate differentials. We are indebted to Baldev Raj, Robert Kunst, the associate editor of Empirical Economics and two anonymous referees for their valuable comments. We also thank seminar participants at the European Central Bank, the Bank of England and Queen Mary University of London. The views expressed in this paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Central Bank or the Eurosystem.     

Commodity Price Instability and Debt-linking by Developing Countries

Most developing countries borrow in world capital markets. Typically this borrowing is denominated in one of the major currencies and requires periodic servicing. The foreign exchange required to meet the service obligation is often dependent on the export of one or a small number of commodities. This demand usually competes with a number of other claims on export earnings, including both consumption and capital goods imports. This paper investigates the use of commodity-linked borrowing by developing countries. If the interest and/or principal payments on external debt are linked to the price of a country's principal exports, the risk of default can be shifted to better-diversified lenders. The social cost of linking is much smaller than that of other compensating arrangements. In addition, commodity-linked debt may reduce the borrower's direct lending costs. This will depend on the quantity of linked debt supplied and the dispersion of expectations about the future price of the commodity. If the supply is small relative to the demand among investors who expect the commodity price to increase, the resulting reduction in the cost of borrowing may be sufficient to offset the premium for bearing the risk associated with the commodity's future price.     

Exchange rates and commodity prices: the case of Australian metal exports

Exporters of homogeneous commodities are usually regarded as ‘price takers’ who operate in perfectly competitive international markets, so that the pass-through of exchange rate changes to foreign-currency prices must be zero. However, many Australian commodities are subject to influences that may produce more complex pricing strategies, for example, markets in which Australia is a dominant exporter, or where there are few buyers and sellers due to the presence of large multi-national corporations. This study uses multivariate cointegration techniques to examine the pricing of Australian metal exports, with particular emphasis on the degree and timing of the pass-through of exchange rate and other changes.     

The comovement between exchange rates and stock prices in the Asian emerging markets

This study investigates the comovement between exchange rates and stock prices in the Asian emerging markets. The sample covers major institutional changes, such as market liberalization and financial crises, so as to examine how the short-term and long-term relations change after such events. The autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) model proposed by Pesaran et al. (2001) is adopted, which allows us to deal with structural breaks easily, and to handle data that have integrals of different orders. Interest rates and foreign reserves are also included in the analysis to reduce potential omitted variable bias. My empirical results suggest that the comovement between exchange rates and stock prices becomes stronger during crisis periods, consistent with contagion or spillover between asset prices, when compared with tranquil periods. Furthermore, most of the spillovers during crisis periods can be attributed to the channel running from stock price shocks to the exchange rate, suggesting that governments should stimulate economic growth and stock markets to attract capital inflow, thereby preventing a currency crisis. However, the industry causality analysis shows the comovement is not stronger for export-oriented industries for all periods, such as industrials and technology industries, thus implying that comovement between exchange rates and stock prices in the Asian emerging markets is generally driven by capital account balance rather than that of trade.     

Correlations and volatility spillovers across commodity and stock markets: Linking energies,food, and gold

This paper employs a VAR-GARCH model to investigate the return links and volatility transmission between the S&P 500 and commodity price indices for energy, food, gold and beverages over the turbulent period from 2000 to 2011. Understanding the price behavior of commodity prices and the volatility transmission mechanism between these markets and the stock exchanges are crucial for each participant, including governments, traders, portfolio managers, consumers, and producers. For return and volatility spillover, the results show significant transmission among the S&P 500 and commodity markets. The past shocks and volatility of the S&P 500 strongly influenced the oil and gold markets. This study finds that the highest conditional correlations are between the S&P 500 and gold index and the S&P 500 and WTI index. We also analyze the optimal weights and hedge ratios for commodities/S&P 500 portfolio holdings using the estimates for each index. Overall, our findings illustrate several important implications for portfolio hedgers for making optimal portfolio allocations, engaging in risk management and forecasting future volatility in equity and commodity markets.     

Stochastic prices and tests of efficiency of foreign exchange markets

This paper shows that typical specifications of efficiency tests of foreign exchange markets are strictly valid only when individuals are risk neutral and prices are non-stochastic. Empirically, however, the neglect of these factors is shown to be of little significance.     

Tests of real interest parity in international currency markets

The purpose of this paper is to examine the behavior of real bilateral exchange rates for major currencies and test the hypothesis of real uncovered interest parity with risk premia, and forward looking expectations. It is plausible that the hypothesis of rational expectations cannot be rejected given the unit root nonstationarity of real exchange rates but it is not unlikely that unit root nonstationarity may be due to rational expectations in foreign exchange markets.     

Monopoly power,barriers to competition and the pattern of price differentials in international trade

Numerous studies have attempted to assess the influence of market structure on performance in domestic markets of industrial countries. With few exceptions, these investigations have shown that prices and profits are higher, and a less efficient allocation of resources prevails, in markets where agressive competition is absent. Using techniques similar to there applied in the industrial market studies, this analysis examines the pattern of iron steel prices in international trade. The findings parallel those for the industrial organization investigations. Typically, international markets which are more concentrated, or which rely on a smaller number of trade contacts, bear higher prices. Also, the magnitudes of these excess price margins are such as to have important policy implications since they constitute a serious drain on the foreign exchange reserves of some developing countries.     

Financialization of agricultural commodities: Evidence from China

Speculation in the commodity futures market distorts commodity prices, driving them away from rational levels. This phenomenon, which is known as the financialization of commodities, has raised significant concerns in recent years. Particularly, in the agricultural market, ‘financialized’ commodities have been blamed for high world food prices. In this paper, we examine the financialization of agricultural commodities in China. To do so, a time-varying copula is employed to investigate the dependence structure between commodities and stock markets. Four insightful results are obtained. First, positive correlations between agricultural commodities and stock markets demonstrate the financialization of agricultural commodities. Second, the identified correlations are time-varying and idiosyncratic with respect to products. Third, the agricultural commodity market is more closely correlated with the domestic stock market than with the overseas market. Fourth, a growing dependence between commodities and the stock markets is detected and the co-movement became stronger after the global financial crisis.     

State prices,liquidity, and default

We show, in a monetary exchange economy, that asset prices in a complete markets general equilibrium are a function of the supply of liquidity by the Central Bank, through its effect on default and interest rates. Two agents trade goods and nominal assets to smooth consumption across periods and future states, in the presence of cash-in-advance financing costs that have effects on real allocations. We show that higher spot interest rates reduce trade and as a result increase state prices. Hence, states of nature with higher interest rates are also states of nature with higher risk-neutral probabilities. This result, which cannot be found in a Lucas-type representative agent model, implies that the yield curve is upward sloping in equilibrium, even when short-term interest rates are fairly stable and the variance of the (macroeconomic) stochastic discount factor is 0. The risk-premium in the term structure is, therefore, a monetary-cost risk premium.     

INTERNATIONAL AVERAGE PRICES AND COMPARISONS OF NATIONAL AGGREGATE PRODUCTION OF AGRICULTURE

"The whole question of making inter-spatial comparisons between countries is a most complicated and hazardous business" (Mr. Campion); international comparisons of a particular value aggregate between countries present a difficult problem connected with the conversion of national value aggregates into a comparable magnitude. This paper presents an alternative approach in that an internationally comparable value aggregate for each country is prepared by the international average prices of commodities which are determined simultaneously with the partial exchange rates of national currencies to a standard currency. The calculated partial exchange rates are so defined as to reflect the purchasing power of national currencies in respect of the group of commodities selected. Consequently, the resulting value aggregate for international comparison has a quantity dimension, eliminating the effect due to the different purchasing power of national currencies in which original prices are quoted. The other methods of international comparison so far being used by other research workers, such as C. Clerk and M. Gilbert and his associates, are examined in the light of the properties of the present method and the crucial differences are delineated. Using the method proposed, an international comparison is made of the aggregate value of agricultural products for 11 selected countries in the world, with sub-divisions into two regions.     

On the disequilibrium dynamics of sequential monetary economies

The purpose of this paper is to study the dynamic behavior of a sequential monetary exchange economy. Transactions take place sequentially against non-equilibrium prices, there is quantity rationing, and credit or cash are the only means of exchange. Agents have optimistic or pessimistic expectations about quantity constraints that represent their beliefs about future trading opportunities.In the credit model the agents incur debts along the transition path towards equilibrium, while in the cash-in-advance model convergence takes place without the occurrence of any debts or claims. The credit mechanism is shown to act as a ‘soft’ correction mechanism on credit fluctuations, while the cash-in-advance constraint acts as a ‘hard’ negative feedback effect driving the prices back towards a neighborhood of a monetary cash-in-advance equilibrium.     

Search cost,trading strategies and optimal market structure

The theory of Walrasian equilibrium yields a set of prices at which the aggregate competitive demand for each commodity equals its aggregate competitive supply. However, even at equilibrium prices the theory of competitive equilibrium does not explicitly offer explanation regarding the manner in which trades are actually executed. This paper considers a model where trade takes place in a decentralized fashion and examines in a dynamic game-theoretic framework, the role of social institution of money and markets in facilitating exchange. The steady state Nash equilibrium derived in the paper demonstrates how, depending on the level of transaction costs associated with a market setup (synonymously, trading posts to exchange possible pairs of goods) appropriate monetary trade emerges, which like a hub and spoke network (Starr and Stinchcombe, 1999) makes some markets non-functioning and in equilibrium only the markets having trade through the medium of exchange continue to exist. However, despite the obvious advantages of a market setup in reducing search costs, pure random search for a complementary trading partner (as considered by Ostroy and Starr, 1974; Kiyotaki and Wright , 1989; and others) prevails in many economies, especially, in many developing economies. This paper models this feature of developing economies by introducing differences in transaction costs across agents and shows why sustainable equilibria might exist exhibiting random search for certain commodities even in the presence of established markets.     

Incomplete Markets, Allocative Efficiency, and the Information Revealed by Prices

We compare rational expectations equilibria with different degrees of information revelation through prices. These equilibria arise in a two-period exchange economy with finitely many states and signals, multiple commodities and incomplete financial markets for nominal assets. We show that there are always equilibria where information is redundant in the sense of being of no value to the uninformed traders. We give conditions under which for a generic set of economies, parametrized by endowments and utilities, there exist open sets of equilibria for which allocative and informational efficiency are independent, with implications for monetary policy. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: D52, D60, D82, E52.     

Export Flexibility and Hedging

The paper considers a risk-averse international firm which sells its output in either the domestic or the foreign market. The firm possesses export flexibility, and so it can choose between the domestic and export markets after considering the foreign exchange rate. It is shown that a separation property holds if the proper hedging instrument is used: the firm's production depends on market prices and technology and does not depend on its attitude towards risk nor on its expectations. A full-hedge proposition is derived.