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We investigate the relation between global foreign exchange (FX) volatility risk and the cross section of excess returns arising from popular strategies that borrow in low interest rate currencies and invest in high interest rate currencies, so-called \"carry trades.\" We find that high interest rate currencies are negatively related to innovations in global FX volatility, and thus deliver low returns in times of unexpected high volatility, when low interest rate currencies provide a hedge by yielding positive returns. Furthermore, we show that volatility risk dominates liquidity risk and our volatility risk proxy also performs well for pricing returns of other portfolios.

This paper presents a model that reproduces the uncovered interest rate parity puzzle. Investors have preferences with external habits. Countercyclical risk premia and procyclical real interest rates arise endogenously. During bad times at home, when domestic consumption is close to the habit level, the representative investor is very risk averse. When the domestic investor is more risk averse than her foreign counterpart, the exchange rate is closely tied to domestic consumption growth shocks. The domestic investor therefore expects a positive currency excess return. Because interest rates are low in bad times, expected currency excess returns increase with interest rate differentials.

We document how the entire distribution of exchange rate returns responds to changes in global financial conditions. We measure global financial conditions as the common component of country-specific financial condition indices, computed consistently across a large panel of developed and emerging economies. Using quantile regression, we provide a characterisation and ranking of the tail behaviour of a large sample of currencies in response to a tightening of global financial conditions, corroborating (and quantifying) some of the prevailing narratives about safe haven and risky currencies. Compared to most standard approaches, our methodology delivers a more nuanced picture of exchange rate behaviour, allowing for example to make probabilistic statements about the likelihood of observing large swings in returns given the prevailing global financial environment. We also identify macroeconomic fundamentals associated with different tail dynamics: currencies of countries with higher interest rates, low levels of international reserves and large fiscal deficits display more marked increases in the likelihood of large losses in response to a tightening of global financial conditions.

This paper provides a comprehensive evaluation of the short-horizon predictive ability of economic fundamentals and forward premiums on monthly exchange-rate returns in a framework that allows for volatility timing. We implement Bayesian methods for estimation and ranking of a set of empirical exchange rate models, and construct combined forecasts based on Bayesian model averaging. More importantly, we assess the economic value of the in-sample and out-of-sample forecasting power of the empirical models, and find two key results: (1) a risk-averse investor will pay a high performance fee to switch from a dynamic portfolio strategy based on the random walk model to one that conditions on the forward premium with stochastic volatility innovations and (2) strategies based on combined forecasts yield large economic gains over the random walk benchmark. These two results are robust to reasonably high transaction costs.

Exchange rate pass-through (ERPT) represents a degree to which changes in nominal exchange rates are transmitted into domestic prices. European Union (EU) countries have experienced the unprecedented inflationary pressure due to high geopolitical risk events. As such, understanding the ERPT plays a crucial role. This study provides a comprehensive and up-to-date analysis of ERPT to import prices for 16 EU countries from January 2006 to December 2022. Using the panel autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) model, our findings confirm the linear, rather than nonlinear, ERPT pattern characterized by a diminishing trend over time in the EU countries. However, the degree of pass-through varies depending on country characteristics. Specifically, countries that are highly dependent on imports experience a larger ERPT. Furthermore, the degree of pass-through to import prices is more significant and persistent during periods of high uncertainty. These findings are robust across various robust analyses including sub periods. Our findings provide that help policymakers evaluate the trade-offs between exchange rate risks and macroeconomic stability during times of high uncertainty.

We develop an equilibrium model in which exchange rates, stock prices, and capital flows are jointly determined under incomplete foreign exchange (forex) risk trading. Incomplete hedging of forex risk, documented for U.S. global mutual funds, induces the following price and capital flow dynamics: Higher returns in the home equity market relative to the foreign equity market are associated with a home currency depreciation. Net equity flows into the foreign market are positively correlated with a foreign currency appreciation. The model predictions are strongly supported at daily, monthly, and quarterly frequencies for 17 OECD countries vis-à-vis the United States. Correlations are strongest after 1990 and for countries with higher equity market capitalization relative to GDP, suggesting that the observed exchange rate dynamics is indeed related to equity market development.

PurposeThis paper contributes to the literature on exchange rate exposure by assessing the extent to which exchange rate risk is priced in both African emerging and developed equity markets. It examines whether this risk leads to a premium or discount in market returns. The study uses the United States and South Africa as representatives for developed and emerging economies, respectively.Design/methodology/approachThe paper employs two-factor and three-factor conditional CAPM approaches with a two-stage estimation process. In the first stage, time-varying risk exposures are derived using the ICAPM model estimated through rolling regression. In the second stage, the impact of these risk exposures, particularly exchange rate risk exposure, is assessed on stock market returns using Generalized Linear Model (GLM) regression.FindingsUnlike previous studies that suggest exchange rate risk is not necessarily priced in the equity market due to hedging, this paper finds that exchange rate risk is indeed priced in both African and developed equity markets, albeit to different extents. The African equity market demands a higher premium compared to the developed equity market.Practical implicationsThe findings of this paper have significant implications for policymakers, asset managers, and investors. They provide insights for making more informed decisions, implementing effective risk management strategies, and fostering a more stable and appealing investment environment.Originality/valueTo the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to evaluate the degree of exchange rate exposure in environments characterized by high currency volatility versus those with low volatility, all within the context of the conditional ICAPM model.

After COVID-19, the economy has become more fluctuating and is exposed to more kinds of risks, such as supply chain risk, exchange rate risk, and economic downturn risk. To maintain a relatively stable position under all kinds of risks, it’s important for firms to develop efficient and useful risk management strategies. In this paper, according to real cases in past years, three important risks to business organizations are introduced. Through comparisons, some suggestions are made about how to construct efficient risk management methods. It can be concluded that futures and low-level long-term hedging strategies are useful in reducing supply chain risk. Interest rate swap contracts and forward foreign exchange contracts are able to reduce exchange rate risk. But for economic recession risk, typical financial derivatives don’t have much effort, diversification is a more efficient risk management method. This paper analyzes efficient risk management methods for the three risks under current environments, providing suggestions and consultations for firms.

Exchange rate volatility has undergone a secular decline since the collapse of the Bretton Woods system. We conjecture that this phenomenon may have led to a generalized decreased need for risk exchange hedging in financial markets. Indeed, we find that the negative association between bilateral foreign portfolio investments and the volatility of the exchange rate has markedly weakened over time. This finding, which is particularly significant for large countries and in the post-crisis period, can also help explain the decline in bilateral investments among EMU member countries. We observe, in fact, that, after 2012, the distinctive fall of Euro-area bilateral equity investments is significantly explained by the global declining effect of exchange rate volatility on financial markets. A lower exchange rate volatility, associated with the ensuing generalized reduction in the perceived exchange rate risk, may have posed a challenge to the economic relevance of the full exchange risk hedging system represented by the common currency area, and hence to the attractiveness of reciprocal investments.