IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cup/macdyn/v13y2009is1p31-57_08.html

Learning, The Forward Premium Puzzle, And Market Efficiency

Author

Listed:
  • Chakraborty, Avik

Abstract

The Forward Premium Puzzle is widely considered to indicate inefficiency in the foreign exchange market. This paper proposes a resolution of the puzzle using recursive least squares learning. Risk-neutral agents learn the unknown parameters, underlying the exchange rate generation process, using constant-gain recursive least squares. Simulations using plausible model parameter values replicate the anomaly along with other observed empirical features of the forward and spot exchange rate data. Estimates of parameter values from data support the model assumptions and justify the use of constant-gain learning. The conclusion is that the puzzle is not necessarily a reflection of inefficiency.

Suggested Citation

  • Chakraborty, Avik, 2009. "Learning, The Forward Premium Puzzle, And Market Efficiency," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 13(S1), pages 31-57, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:macdyn:v:13:y:2009:i:s1:p:31-57_08
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S1365100509080109/type/journal_article
    File Function: link to article abstract page
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Lewis, Karen K., 1995. "Puzzles in international financial markets," Handbook of International Economics, in: G. M. Grossman & K. Rogoff (ed.), Handbook of International Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 37, pages 1913-1971, Elsevier.
    2. Lewis, Karen K, 1991. "Was There a "Peso Problem" in the U.S. Term Structure of Interest Rates: 1979-1982?," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 32(1), pages 159-173, February.
    3. Rossi, Barbara, 2006. "Are Exchange Rates Really Random Walks? Some Evidence Robust To Parameter Instability," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 10(1), pages 20-38, February.
    4. Maurice Obstfeld & Kenneth S. Rogoff, 1996. "Foundations of International Macroeconomics," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262150476, December.
    5. Engel, Charles, 1996. "The forward discount anomaly and the risk premium: A survey of recent evidence," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 3(2), pages 123-192, June.
    6. repec:bla:scandj:v:78:y:1976:i:2:p:229-48 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. Hodrick, Robert J. & Srivastava, Sanjay, 1986. "The covariation of risk premiums and expected future spot exchange rates," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 5(1, Supple), pages 5-21, March.
    8. Kenneth A. Froot & Jeffrey A. Frankel, 1989. "Forward Discount Bias: Is it an Exchange Risk Premium?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 104(1), pages 139-161.
    9. Andrews, Donald W K & Ploberger, Werner, 1994. "Optimal Tests When a Nuisance Parameter Is Present Only under the Alternative," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 62(6), pages 1383-1414, November.
    10. Philippe Bacchetta & Eric van Wincoop, 2005. "Incomplete Information Processing: A Solution to the Forward Discount Puzzle," Working Papers 05.03, Swiss National Bank, Study Center Gerzensee.
    11. Bams, Dennis & Walkowiak, Kim & Wolff, Christian C. P., 2004. "More evidence on the dollar risk premium in the foreign exchange market," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 23(2), pages 271-282, March.
    12. Sarno,Lucio & Taylor,Mark P., 2003. "The Economics of Exchange Rates," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521485845, November.
    13. Mark, Nelson C & Wu, Yangru, 1998. "Rethinking Deviations from Uncovered Interest Parity: The Role of Covariance Risk and Noise," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 108(451), pages 1686-1706, November.
    14. Lewis, Karen K, 1989. "Changing Beliefs and Systematic Rational Forecast Errors with Evidence from Foreign Exchange," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 79(4), pages 621-636, September.
    15. Donald W. K. Andrews, 2003. "Tests for Parameter Instability and Structural Change with Unknown Change Point: A Corrigendum," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 71(1), pages 395-397, January.
    16. Froot, Kenneth A & Thaler, Richard H, 1990. "Foreign Exchange," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 4(3), pages 179-192, Summer.
    17. Groen, Jan J J, 2005. "Exchange Rate Predictability and Monetary Fundamentals in a Small Multi-country Panel," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 37(3), pages 495-516, June.
    18. De Long, J Bradford & Andrei Shleifer & Lawrence H. Summers & Robert J. Waldmann, 1990. "Noise Trader Risk in Financial Markets," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 98(4), pages 703-738, August.
    19. Mark, Nelson C., 1985. "On time varying risk premia in the foreign exchange market: An econometric analysis," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 16(1), pages 3-18, July.
    20. Robert E. Cumby & Maurice Obstfeld, 1984. "International Interest Rate and Price Level Linkages under Flexible Exchange Rates: A Review of Recent Evidence," NBER Chapters, in: Exchange Rate Theory and Practice, pages 121-152, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    21. Maurice Obstfeld, 1988. "The Effectiveness of Foreign-Exchange Intervention: Recent Experience," NBER Working Papers 2796, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    22. Hansen, Bruce E., 1992. "Testing for parameter instability in linear models," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 14(4), pages 517-533, August.
    23. Jushan Bai & Pierre Perron, 2003. "Computation and analysis of multiple structural change models," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 18(1), pages 1-22.
    24. Fama, Eugene F., 1984. "Forward and spot exchange rates," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 14(3), pages 319-338, November.
    25. Cavaglia, Stefano M F G & Verschoor, Willem F C & Wolff, Christian C P, 1994. "On the Biasedness of Forward Foreign Exchange Rates: Irrationality or Risk Premia?," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 67(3), pages 321-343, July.
    26. Branch, William A. & Evans, George W., 2006. "A simple recursive forecasting model," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 91(2), pages 158-166, May.
    27. Stock, James H & Watson, Mark W, 1993. "A Simple Estimator of Cointegrating Vectors in Higher Order Integrated Systems," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 61(4), pages 783-820, July.
    28. Maurice Obstfeld, 1990. "The Effectiveness of Foreign-Exchange Intervention: Recent Experience, 1985- 1988," NBER Chapters, in: International Policy Coordination and Exchange Rate Fluctuations, pages 197-246, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    29. James H. Stock & Mark W.Watson, 2003. "Forecasting Output and Inflation: The Role of Asset Prices," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 41(3), pages 788-829, September.
    30. Evans, George W, 1986. "A Test for Speculative Bubbles in the Sterling-Dollar Exchange Rate: 1981-84," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 76(4), pages 621-636, September.
    31. Martin D. D. Evans & Karen K. Lewis, 2017. "Trends in Excess Returns in Currency and Bond Markets," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Studies in Foreign Exchange Economics, chapter 2, pages 39-57, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Brian Lucey & Grace Loring, 2012. "Forward Exchange Rate Biasedness across Developed and Developing Country Currencies - Do Observed Patterns Persist Out of Sample?Abstract:," The Institute for International Integration Studies Discussion Paper Series iiisdp404, IIIS.
    2. Reed, Jason R., 2019. "The forward premium puzzle and Markov-switching adaptive learning," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 1-17.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Engel, Charles, 1996. "The forward discount anomaly and the risk premium: A survey of recent evidence," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 3(2), pages 123-192, June.
    2. Bai, Shuming & Mollick, Andre Varella, 2010. "Currency crisis and the forward discount bias: Evidence from emerging economies under breaks," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 20(5), pages 556-574, December.
    3. Kerstin Bernoth & Jürgen von Hagen & Casper G. de Vries, 2007. "The Forward Premium Puzzle only emerges gradually," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 07-033/2, Tinbergen Institute.
    4. Josh Stillwagon, 2013. "The Excess Returns Puzzle in Currency Markets: Clues on Moving Forward," Working Papers 1313, Trinity College, Department of Economics.
    5. Lucio Sarno, 2005. "Viewpoint: Towards a solution to the puzzles in exchange rate economics: where do we stand?," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 38(3), pages 673-708, August.
    6. Meier, Carsten-Patrick, 1999. "Predicting real exchange rates from real interest rate differentials and net foreign asset stocks: evidence for the mark/dollar parity," Kiel Working Papers 962, Kiel Institute for the World Economy.
    7. Chakraborty, Avik & Evans, George W., 2008. "Can perpetual learning explain the forward-premium puzzle?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(3), pages 477-490, April.
    8. Ledenyov, Dimitri O. & Ledenyov, Viktor O., 2015. "Wave function method to forecast foreign currencies exchange rates at ultra high frequency electronic trading in foreign currencies exchange markets," MPRA Paper 67470, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Ismailov, Adilzhan & Rossi, Barbara, 2018. "Uncertainty and deviations from uncovered interest rate parity," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 88(C), pages 242-259.
    10. Ron Jongen & Willem F.C. Verschoor & Christian C.P. Wolff, 2008. "Foreign Exchange Rate Expectations: Survey And Synthesis," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 22(1), pages 140-165, February.
    11. Alex Maynard, 2006. "The forward premium anomaly: statistical artefact or economic puzzle? New evidence from robust tests," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 39(4), pages 1244-1281, November.
    12. Seongman Moon & Carlos Velasco, 2011. "The Forward Discount Puzzle: Identi cation of Economic Assumptions," Working Papers 1112, Nam Duck-Woo Economic Research Institute, Sogang University (Former Research Institute for Market Economy).
    13. Norman C. Miller, 2014. "Exchange Rate Economics," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 14981, June.
    14. Michael Jetter & Alex Nikolsko-Rzhevskyy & Olena Ogrokhina, 2019. "Can policy shifts explain the forward discount puzzle?," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 57(6), pages 1891-1909, December.
    15. Richard H. Clarida & Mark P. Taylor, 1997. "The Term Structure Of Forward Exchange Premiums And The Forecastability Of Spot Exchange Rates: Correcting The Errors," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 79(3), pages 353-361, August.
    16. Mark, Nelson C & Wu, Yangru, 1998. "Rethinking Deviations from Uncovered Interest Parity: The Role of Covariance Risk and Noise," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 108(451), pages 1686-1706, November.
    17. Han, Bing & Hirshleifer, David & Wang, Tracy Yue, 2005. "Investor Overconfidence and the Forward Discount Puzzle," Working Paper Series 2005-21, Ohio State University, Charles A. Dice Center for Research in Financial Economics.
    18. Carlson, J.A: Osler, C.L., 1998. "Determinants of Currency Risk Premiums," Papers 98-006, Purdue University, Krannert School of Management - Center for International Business Education and Research (CIBER).
    19. Josh Stillwagon, 2013. "Are Risk Premia Related to Real Exchange Rate Swings? Survey Expectations and I(2) Trends," Working Papers 1318, Trinity College, Department of Economics.
    20. Saskia ter Ellen & Willem F. C. Verschoor, 2018. "Heterogeneous Beliefs and Asset Price Dynamics: A Survey of Recent Evidence," Dynamic Modeling and Econometrics in Economics and Finance, in: Fredj Jawadi (ed.), Uncertainty, Expectations and Asset Price Dynamics, pages 53-79, Springer.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cup:macdyn:v:13:y:2009:i:s1:p:31-57_08. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Kirk Stebbing (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cambridge.org/mdy .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.