Exchange Rate Disconnect And The General Equilibrium Puzzle

We propose a dynamic general equilibrium model of exchange rate determination, which simultaneously accounts for all major puzzles associated with nominal and real exchange rates. This includes the Meese-Rogoff disconnect puzzle, the PPP puzzle, the terms-of-trade puzzle, the Backus- Smith puzzle, and the UIP puzzle. The model has two main building blocks - the driving force (or the exogenous shock process) and the transmission mechanism - both crucial for the quantitative success of the model. The transmission mechanism - which relies on strategic complementarities in price setting, weak substitutability between domestic and foreign goods, and home bias in consumption - is tightly disciplined by the micro-level empirical estimates in the recent international macroeconomics literature. The driving force is an exogenous small but persistent shock to international asset demand, which we prove is the only type of shock that can generate the exchange rate disconnect properties. We then show that a model with this financial shock alone is quantitatively consistent with the moments describing the dynamic comovement between exchange rates and macro variables. Nominal rigidities improve on the margin the quantitative performance of the model, but are not necessary for exchange rate disconnect, as the driving force does not rely on the monetary shocks. We extend the analysis to multiple shocks and an explicit model of the financial sector to address the additional Mussa puzzle and Engel's risk premium puzzle.

This paper conducts general equilibrium (GE) estimation to evaluate the empirical contributions of macroeconomic shocks in explaining the exchange rate disconnect, excess volatility, and the uncovered interest parity (UIP) puzzles. We embed stochastic volatilities and limits-to-international arbitrage in a two-country New Keynesian model and estimate the GE system for the US and Euro area using higher-order approximation and full-information Bayesian methods. Assessing the roles of level vs. volatility shocks and linear vs. higher-order approximations, we find that shocks to macroeconomic fundamentals together with their uncertainties can account for a sizable portion-over 40%-of the observed exchange rate variations. Using the GE estimates, we then evaluate whether the fundamental shocks in our model can deliver the UIP relationship observed in the data, and more importantly, whether the results may differ conditionally vs. unconditionally. In line with findings in previous literature, several fundamental shocks individually can indeed generate patterns consistent with data. However, their contributions unconditionally in the GE setting are quantitatively insufficient to resolve the UIP puzzle. The presence of multiple shocks, their potential interactions, and the need for estimators to fit empirical dynamics of all observables beyond just the exchange rate are all likely reasons behind this "General Equilibrium Puzzle," which underscores the importance of GE estimation beyond simulations or partial-equilibrium analyses.

We propose a dynamic general equilibrium model of exchange rate determination, which simultaneously accounts for all major puzzles associated with nominal and real exchange rates. This includes the Meese-Rogoff disconnect puzzle, the PPP puzzle, the terms-of-trade puzzle, the Backus- Smith puzzle, and the UIP puzzle. The model has two main building blocks -- the driving force (or the exogenous shock process) and the transmission mechanism -- both crucial for the quantitative success of the model. The transmission mechanism -- which relies on strategic complementarities in price setting, weak substitutability between domestic and foreign goods, and home bias in consumption -- is tightly disciplined by the micro-level empirical estimates in the recent international macroeconomics literature. The driving force is an exogenous small but persistent shock to international asset demand, which we prove is the only type of shock that can generate the exchange rate disconnect properties. We then show that a model with this financial shock alone is quantitatively consistent with the moments describing the dynamic comovement between exchange rates and macro variables. Nominal rigidities improve on the margin the quantitative performance of the model, but are not necessary for exchange rate disconnect, as the driving force does not rely on the monetary shocks. We extend the analysis to multiple shocks and an explicit model of the financial sector to address the additional Mussa puzzle and Engel's risk premium puzzle.

For about three decades until the Global Financial Crisis (GFC), Covered Interest Parity (CIP) appeared to hold quite closely—even as a broad macroeconomic relationship applying to daily or weekly data. Not only have CIP deviations significantly increased since the GFC, but potential macrofinancial drivers of the variation in CIP deviations have also become significant. The variation in CIP deviations seems to be associated with multiple factors, not only regulatory changes. Most of these do not display a uniform importance across currency pairs and time, and some are associated with possible temporary considerations (such as asynchronous monetary policy cycles).

''In summary, the book is valuable as a textbook both at the advanced undergraduate level and at the graduate level. It is also very useful for the economist who wants to be brought up-to-date on theoretical and empirical research on exchange rate behaviour.'' ""Journal of International Economics""

Discussions of the different theoretical and empirical paradigms for setting and predicting exchange rates.

A comprehensive and in-depth look at exchange-rate dynamics Variations in the foreign exchange market influence all aspects of the world economy, and understanding these dynamics is one of the great challenges of international economics. This book provides a new, comprehensive, and in-depth examination of the standard theories and latest research in exchange-rate economics. Covering a vast swath of theoretical and empirical work, the book explores established theories of exchange-rate determination using macroeconomic fundamentals, and presents unique microbased approaches that combine the insights of microstructure models with the macroeconomic forces driving currency trading. Macroeconomic models have long assumed that agents—households, firms, financial institutions, and central banks—all have the same information about the structure of the economy and therefore hold the same expectations and uncertainties regarding foreign currency returns. Microbased models, however, look at how heterogeneous information influences the trading decisions of agents and becomes embedded in exchange rates. Replicating key features of actual currency markets, these microbased models generate a rich array of empirical predictions concerning trading patterns and exchange-rate dynamics that are strongly supported by data. The models also show how changing macroeconomic conditions exert an influence on short-term exchange-rate dynamics via their impact on currency trading. Designed for graduate courses in international macroeconomics, international finance, and finance, and as a go-to reference for researchers in international economics, Exchange-Rate Dynamics guides readers through a range of literature on exchange-rate determination, offering fresh insights for further reading and research. Comprehensive and in-depth examination of the latest research in exchange-rate economics Outlines theoretical and empirical research across the spectrum of modeling approaches Presents new results on the importance of currency trading in exchange-rate determination Provides new perspectives on long-standing puzzles in exchange-rate economics End-of-chapter questions cement key ideas

The NBER Macroeconomics Annual presents, extends, and applies pioneering work in macroeconomics and stimulates work by macroeconomists on important policy issues. Each paper in the Annual is followed by comments and discussion.

Most trade is invoiced in very few currencies. Despite this, the Mundell-Fleming benchmark and its variants focus on pricing in the producer’s currency or in local currency. We model instead a ‘dominant currency paradigm’ for small open economies characterized by three features: pricing in a dominant currency; pricing complementarities, and imported input use in production. Under this paradigm: (a) the terms-of-trade is stable; (b) dominant currency exchange rate pass-through into export and import prices is high regardless of destination or origin of goods; (c) exchange rate pass-through of non-dominant currencies is small; (d) expenditure switching occurs mostly via imports, driven by the dollar exchange rate while exports respond weakly, if at all; (e) strengthening of the dominant currency relative to non-dominant ones can negatively impact global trade; (f) optimal monetary policy targets deviations from the law of one price arising from dominant currency fluctuations, in addition to the inflation and output gap. Using data from Colombia we document strong support for the dominant currency paradigm.

This paper offers a dynamic noisy rational expectations model of the foreign exchange market with two dimensions of information asymmetry. Some investors are assumed to have public information, the rest are assumed to possess both public and private information. This paper demonstrates why solutions to the widely documented exchange rate disconnect puzzle should take into account these dimensions of information asymmetry in the markets. It is shown in the model that as proportion of investors possessing only public information to those possessing both types of information changes, the disconnect between macroeconomic variables and the exchange rate reacts to changes in this proportion in important ways. A surprising finding is that this disconnect is bigger when the proportion of investors possessing more information about fundamentals in the market is smaller.