Search Results
Working Paper
Do China and oil exporters influence major currency configurations?
This paper analyses the impact of the shift away from a U.S. dollar focus of systemically important emerging market economies (EMEs) on configurations between the U.S. dollar, the euro and the yen. Given the difficulty that fixed or managed U.S. dollar exchange rate regimes remain pervasive and reserve compositions mostly kept secret, the identification strategy of the paper is to analyse the market impact on major currency pairs of official statements made by EME policy-makers about their exchange rate regime and reserve composition. Developing a novel database for 18 EMEs, we find that such ...
Conference Paper
Bubble thy neighbor: portfolio effects and externalities from capital controls
We use changes in Brazil?s tax on capital inflows from 2006 to 2011 to test for direct portfolio effects and externalities from capital controls on investor portfolios. The analysis is structured based on information from investor interviews. We find that an increase in Brazil?s tax on foreign investment in bonds causes investors to significantly decrease their portfolio allocations to Brazil in both bonds and equities. Investors simultaneously increase allocations to other countries that have substantial exposure to China and decrease allocations to countries viewed as more likely to use ...
Working Paper
Convergence and anchoring of yield curves in the Euro area
We study the convergence of European bond markets and the anchoring of inflation expectations in euro area countries using high-frequency bond yield data for France, Germany, Italy and Spain. We find that Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) has led to substantial convergence in euro area sovereign bond markets in terms of interest rate levels, unconditional daily fluctuations, and conditional responses to major macroeconomic data announcements. Our findings also suggest a substantial increase in the anchoring of long-term inflation expectations since EMU, particularly for Italy and Spain, which ...
Working Paper
Liquidity, risk and the global transmission of the 2007–08 financial crisis and the 2010–11 sovereign debt crisis title
The paper analyses the transmission of liquidity shocks and risk shocks to global financial markets. Using a Global VAR methodology, the findings reveal fundamental differences in the transmission strength and pattern between the 2007?08 financial crisis and the 2010?11 sovereign debt crisis. Unlike in the former crisis, emerging market economies have become much more resilient to adverse shocks in 2010?11. Moreover, a fight-to-safety phenomenon across asset classes has become particularly strong during the 2010?11 sovereign debt crisis, with risk shocks driving down bond yields in key ...
Working Paper
Equal size, equal role? interest rate interdependence between the euro area and the United States
This paper investigates whether the degree and the nature of economic and monetary policy interdependence between the United States and the euro area have changed with the advent of EMU. Using real-time data, it addresses this issue from the perspective of financial markets by analysing the effects of monetary policy announcements and macroeconomic news on daily interest rates in the United States and the euro area. First, the paper finds that the interdependence of money markets has increased strongly around EMU. Although spillover effects from the United States to the euro area remain ...
Working Paper
Asset prices, exchange rates and the current account
This paper analyses the role of asset prices in comparison to other factors, in particular exchange rates, as a driver of the US trade balance. It employs a Bayesian structural VAR model that requires imposing only a minimum of economically meaningful sign restrictions. We find that equity market shocks and housing price shocks have been major determinants of the US current account in the past, accounting for up to 32% of the movements of the US trade balance at a horizon of 20 quarters. By contrast, shocks to the real exchange rate have been much less relevant, explaining less than 7% and ...
Working Paper
How successful is the G7 in managing exchange rates?
The paper assesses the extent to which the Group of Seven (G7) has been successful in its management of major currencies since the 1970s. Using an event-study approach, the paper finds evidence that the G7 has been overall effective in moving the U.S. dollar, yen and euro in the intended direction at horizons of up to three months after G7 meetings, but not at longer horizons. While the success of the G7 is partly dependent on the market environment, it is also to a significant degree endogenous to the policy process itself. The findings indicate that the reputation and credibility of the G7, ...