In a forthcoming paper (“The New Fama Puzzle”), coauthored with Matthieu Bussière (Banque de France), Laurent Ferrara (Banque de France), Jonas Heipertz (Paris School of Economics), we re-examine uncovered interest parity – the proposition that anticipated exchange rate changes should offset interest rate differentials. This is one of the most central concepts in international finance. At the same time, empirical validation of this concept has proven elusive. In fact, the failure of the joint hypothesis of uncovered interest rate parity (UIP) and rational expectations – sometimes termed the unbiasedness hypothesis – is one of the most robust empirical regularities in the literature. The most commonplace explanations – such as the existence of an exchange risk premium, which drives a wedge between forward rates and expected future spot rates – have little empirical verification.
Category Archives: international
Mr. Trump on Economics and Accounting
“For many, many years, the United States has suffered through massive trade deficits. That’s why we have $20 trillion in debt. So we’ll be changing that.”
This statement was made during the meeting with the South Korean President on June 30th [1]
Guest Contribution: “‘Lending money to people across the water’: The British Joint Stock Banking Acts of 1826 and 1833, and the Panic of 1837”
Today we are pleased to present a guest contribution written by Geoffrey Williams, Assistant Professor at Transylvania University.
“The Transmission of Macroprudential and Monetary Policies across Borders”
That’s the title of a one day conference at the margins of the IMF-World Bank Spring Meetings, organized by the International Banking Research Network (IBRN) and the Monetary and Capital Markets Department of the IMF, aimed at featuring research on the international transmission of macroprudential and monetary policies and to discuss policy implications from this research.
Guest Contribution: “The Real Exchange Rate and Economic Growth: Revisiting the Case Using External Instruments”
Today we are pleased to present a guest contribution written by Maurizio Michael Habib, Elitza Mileva and Livio Stracca. The views expressed belong to the authors and are not necessarily shared by the institutions to which the authors are affiliated.
Is the Trump Dollar Rally Over?
Mix together the dashing of great (plutocratically oriented tax cut) expectations, the complete absence of any plan for infrastructure spending, and mix in some risk, and one gets this:
Figure 1: Dollar index (DXY). Source: Tradingeconomics.
“Exchange Rate Models for a New Era: Major and Emerging Market Currencies”
That’s the title of an upcoming conference organized by Global Research Unit at Department of Economics and Finance, City University of Hong Kong, Bank for International Settlements, Asian Office, Centre for Economic Policy Research, and Journal of International Money and Finance, May 18-19 at City University Hong Kong. The conference program is here, official conference website here.
Guest Contribution: “How to Re-Negotiate NAFTA”
Today, we present a guest post written by Jeffrey Frankel, Harpel Professor at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, and formerly a member of the White House Council of Economic Advisers. A shorter version appeared on April 22nd in Project Syndicate.
China’s tetralemma
Many countries have three policy objectives: (1) being able to set their own monetary policy, in order to keep their own inflation and unemployment at desired levels; (2) having a stable exchange rate, in order to avoid disruptive shifts in exports or imports; and (3) allowing free capital flows, in order to help the country’s citizens and firms find the most efficient sources and uses of capital. But the famous policy trilemma of international economics claims that any country is going to be forced to give up on one of those three goals.
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“Major Challenges for Global Macroeconomic Stability: The Role of the G7”
That was the title of a conference organized by Istituto Affari Internazionale (with support of the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation and Banca d’Italia) that I attended a couple of weeks ago in Rome.