IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/inecon/v152y2024ics0022199624001016.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Dollar reserves and U.S. yields: Identifying the price impact of official flows

Author

Listed:
  • Ahmed, Rashad
  • Rebucci, Alessandro

Abstract

By exploiting changes in the volatility of U.S. Treasury yields and foreign official (FO) flows into U.S. Treasuries after the 2008 Global Financial Crisis, we identify a FO flow shock via heteroskedasticity in a structural VAR. We estimate that a $100B FO flow shock moves 5 and 10-year U.S. yields by about 100 basis points within a month. An event study of the intraday U.S. Treasury yield curve response to Japan’s FX intervention in September 2022 validates our VAR estimates. Our findings imply that a 1% reduction in the Dollar share of China’s reserves could raise long-term U.S. yields by about 20 basis points.

Suggested Citation

  • Ahmed, Rashad & Rebucci, Alessandro, 2024. "Dollar reserves and U.S. yields: Identifying the price impact of official flows," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 152(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:inecon:v:152:y:2024:i:c:s0022199624001016
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jinteco.2024.103974
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022199624001016
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jinteco.2024.103974?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Arvind Krishnamurthy & Annette Vissing-Jorgensen, 2012. "The Aggregate Demand for Treasury Debt," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 120(2), pages 233-267.
    2. Markku Lanne & Helmut Lütkepohl, 2008. "Identifying Monetary Policy Shocks via Changes in Volatility," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 40(6), pages 1131-1149, September.
    3. Robin Greenwood & Annette Vissing-Jorgensen, 2018. "The Impact of Pensions and Insurance on Global Yield Curves," Harvard Business School Working Papers 18-109, Harvard Business School, revised Dec 2018.
    4. D’Amico, Stefania & King, Thomas B., 2013. "Flow and stock effects of large-scale treasury purchases: Evidence on the importance of local supply," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 108(2), pages 425-448.
    5. Daniel J. Lewis, 2022. "Robust Inference in Models Identified via Heteroskedasticity," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 104(3), pages 510-524, May.
    6. Zhengyang Jiang & Arvind Krishnamurthy & Hanno Lustig, 2021. "Foreign Safe Asset Demand and the Dollar Exchange Rate," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 76(3), pages 1049-1089, June.
    7. Beltran, Daniel O. & Kretchmer, Maxwell & Marquez, Jaime & Thomas, Charles P., 2013. "Foreign holdings of U.S. Treasuries and U.S. Treasury yields," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 32(C), pages 1120-1143.
    8. Helmut Lütkepohl & Mika Meitz & Aleksei Netšunajev & Pentti Saikkonen, 2021. "Testing identification via heteroskedasticity in structural vector autoregressive models," The Econometrics Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 24(1), pages 1-22.
    9. Burcu Erik & Marco J. Lombardi & Dubravko Mihaljek & Hyun Song Shin, 2020. "The Dollar, Bank Leverage, and Real Economic Activity: An Evolving Relationship," AEA Papers and Proceedings, American Economic Association, vol. 110, pages 529-534, May.
    10. José Luis Montiel Olea & Mikkel Plagborg-Møller & Eric Qian, 2022. "SVAR Identification from Higher Moments: Has the Simultaneous Causality Problem Been Solved?," AEA Papers and Proceedings, American Economic Association, vol. 112, pages 481-485, May.
    11. Emi Nakamura & Jón Steinsson, 2018. "High-Frequency Identification of Monetary Non-Neutrality: The Information Effect," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 133(3), pages 1283-1330.
    12. Roberto Rigobon & Brian Sack, 2003. "Measuring The Reaction of Monetary Policy to the Stock Market," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 118(2), pages 639-669.
    13. Fang, Xiang & Hardy, Bryan & Lewis, Karen K., 2022. "Who Holds Sovereign Debt and Why It Matters," CEPR Discussion Papers 17338, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    14. repec:fip:fedgsq:y:2005:i:mar10 is not listed on IDEAS
    15. Olivier Jeanne & Romain Rancière, 2011. "The Optimal Level of International Reserves For Emerging Market Countries: A New Formula and Some Applications," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 121(555), pages 905-930, September.
    16. Joseph E. Gagnon & Matthew Raskin & Julie Remache & Brian P. Sack, 2011. "Large-scale asset purchases by the Federal Reserve: did they work?," Economic Policy Review, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, vol. 17(May), pages 41-59.
    17. Maurice Obstfeld & Jay C. Shambaugh & Alan M. Taylor, 2010. "Financial Stability, the Trilemma, and International Reserves," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 2(2), pages 57-94, April.
    18. Ahmed, Rashad, 2023. "Flights-to-safety and macroeconomic adjustment in emerging markets: The role of U.S. monetary policy," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 133(C).
    19. Ron Alquist & Karlye Dilts Stedman & R. Jay Kahn, 2022. "Foreign Reserve Management and U.S. Money Market Liquidity: A Cost of Exorbitant Privilege," Research Working Paper RWP 22-08, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City.
    20. Ricardo J. Caballero & Arvind Krishnamurthy, 2009. "Global Imbalances and Financial Fragility," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(2), pages 584-588, May.
    21. Daniel J Lewis, 2021. "Identifying Shocks via Time-Varying Volatility [First Order Autoregressive Processes and Strong Mixing]," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 88(6), pages 3086-3124.
    22. Forbes, Kristin J. & Warnock, Francis E., 2021. "Capital flow waves—or ripples? Extreme capital flow movements since the crisis," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 116(C).
    23. Arslanalp, Serkan & Eichengreen, Barry & Simpson-Bell, Chima, 2022. "The stealth erosion of dollar dominance and the rise of nontraditional reserve currencies," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 138(C).
    24. Kristin J. Forbes & Roberto Rigobon, 2002. "No Contagion, Only Interdependence: Measuring Stock Market Comovements," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 57(5), pages 2223-2261, October.
    25. Aizenman, Joshua & Ito, Hiro & Pasricha, Gurnain Kaur, 2022. "Central bank swap arrangements in the COVID-19 crisis," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 122(C).
    26. 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.
    27. Alessandro Rebucci & Jonathan S. Hartley & Daniel Jiménez, 2022. "An Event Study of COVID-19 Central Bank Quantitative Easing in Advanced and Emerging Economies," Advances in Econometrics, in: Essays in Honor of M. Hashem Pesaran: Prediction and Macro Modeling, volume 43, pages 291-322, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    28. Swanson, Eric T., 2021. "Measuring the effects of federal reserve forward guidance and asset purchases on financial markets," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 32-53.
    29. Egemen Eren & Andreas Schrimpf & Dora Xia, 2023. "The demand for government debt," BIS Working Papers 1105, Bank for International Settlements.
    30. Mr. Serkan Arslanalp & Mr. Barry J. Eichengreen & Chima Simpson-Bell, 2022. "The Stealth Erosion of Dollar Dominance: Active Diversifiers and the Rise of Nontraditional Reserve Currencies," IMF Working Papers 2022/058, International Monetary Fund.
    31. Ferreira, Thiago R.T. & Shousha, Samer, 2023. "Determinants of global neutral interest rates," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 145(C).
    32. Vissing-Jorgensen, Annette, 2021. "The Treasury Market in Spring 2020 and the Response of the Federal Reserve," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 124(C), pages 19-47.
    33. Eric T. Swanson & John C. Williams, 2014. "Measuring the Effect of the Zero Lower Bound on Medium- and Longer-Term Interest Rates," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(10), pages 3154-3185, October.
    34. Dominguez, Kathryn M.E. & Hashimoto, Yuko & Ito, Takatoshi, 2012. "International reserves and the global financial crisis," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(2), pages 388-406.
    35. Du, Wenxin & Hébert, Benjamin & Li, Wenhao, 2023. "Intermediary balance sheets and the treasury yield curve," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 150(3).
    36. Ben S. Bernanke & Vincent R. Reinhart & Brian P. Sack, 2004. "Monetary Policy Alternatives at the Zero Bound: An Empirical Assessment," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 35(2), pages 1-100.
    37. Oscar Jorda & Alan Taylor & Sanjay Singh, 2019. "The Long-Run Effects of Monetary Policy," 2019 Meeting Papers 1307, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    38. Christopher A. Sims & Tao Zha, 2006. "Were There Regime Switches in U.S. Monetary Policy?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(1), pages 54-81, March.
    39. Markus Brunnermeier & Darius Palia & Karthik A. Sastry & Christopher A. Sims, 2021. "Feedbacks: Financial Markets and Economic Activity," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 111(6), pages 1845-1879, June.
    40. Michael D. Bordo & Arunima Sinha, 2023. "The 1932 Federal Reserve Open‐Market Purchases as a Precedent for Quantitative Easing," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 55(5), pages 1177-1212, August.
    41. Arslanalp, Serkan & Eichengreen, Barry & Simpson-Bell, Chima, 2023. "Gold as international reserves: A barbarous relic no more?," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 145(C).
    42. Chinn, Menzie D. & Ito, Hiro & McCauley, Robert N., 2022. "Do central banks rebalance their currency shares?," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 122(C).
    43. Kim, Duhyeong, 2023. "International effects of quantitative easing and foreign exchange intervention," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 145(C).
    44. Kilian,Lutz & Lütkepohl,Helmut, 2018. "Structural Vector Autoregressive Analysis," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781107196575, June.
    45. Ahmed, Shaghil & Zlate, Andrei, 2014. "Capital flows to emerging market economies: A brave new world?," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 48(PB), pages 221-248.
    46. Ben S. Bernanke, 2005. "The global saving glut and the U.S. current account deficit," Speech 77, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    47. Du, Wenxin & Im, Joanne & Schreger, Jesse, 2018. "The U.S. Treasury Premium," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 112(C), pages 167-181.
    48. Roberto Rigobon, 2003. "Identification Through Heteroskedasticity," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 85(4), pages 777-792, November.
    49. Carol C. Bertaut & Ralph W. Tryon, 2007. "Monthly estimates of U.S. cross-border securities positions," International Finance Discussion Papers 910, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    50. Zhengyang Jiang & Robert J. Richmond & Tony Zhang, 2022. "A Portfolio Approach to Global Imbalances," NBER Working Papers 30253, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    51. Alexandra M. Tabova & Francis E. Warnock, 2021. "Foreign Investors and US Treasuries," NBER Working Papers 29313, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    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. Jean-Pierre Landau, 2025. "Tariffs, the dollar and the US economy: A discussion of the ‘Mar-a-Lago accord’," Post-Print hal-05043295, HAL.

    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. Bernoth, Kerstin & Herwartz, Helmut & Trienens, Lasse, 2024. "Interest Rates, Convenience Yields and Inflation Expectations: Drivers of US Dollar Exchange Rates," VfS Annual Conference 2024 (Berlin): Upcoming Labor Market Challenges 302351, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association, revised 2024.
    2. Georgios Georgiadis & Gernot J. Müller & Ben Schumann, 2023. "Dollar Trinity and the Global Financial Cycle," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 2058, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    3. Jarociński, Marek, 2024. "Estimating the Fed’s unconventional policy shocks," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 144(C).
    4. Carriero, Andrea & Marcellino, Massimiliano & Tornese, Tommaso, 2024. "Blended identification in structural VARs," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 146(C).
    5. Cordoni, Francesco & Dorémus, Nicolas & Moneta, Alessio, 2024. "Identification of vector autoregressive models with nonlinear contemporaneous structure," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 162(C).
    6. Chen, Zhengyang, 2019. "The Long-term Rate and Interest Rate Volatility in Monetary Policy Transmission," EconStor Preprints 204579, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics.
    7. repec:diw:diwwpp:dp2081 is not listed on IDEAS
    8. Michael B. Devereux & Charles Engel & Steve Pak Yeung Wu, 2023. "Collateral Advantage: Exchange Rates, Capital Flows and Global Cycles," NBER Working Papers 31164, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Dominik Bertsche & Robin Braun, 2022. "Identification of Structural Vector Autoregressions by Stochastic Volatility," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 40(1), pages 328-341, January.
    10. Helmut Lütkepohl & Fei Shang & Luis Uzeda & Tomasz Woźniak, 2024. "Partial Identification of Heteroskedastic Structural VARs: Theory and Bayesian Inference," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 2081, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    11. Demetrescu, Matei & Salish, Nazarii, 2024. "(Structural) VAR models with ignored changes in mean and volatility," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 40(2), pages 840-854.
    12. Francois John Nana, 2020. "Foreign official holdings of US treasuries, stock effect and the economy: a DSGE approach," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 20(1), pages 1-28, January.
    13. Camelia Minoiu & Andrés Schneider & Min Wei, 2023. "Why Does the Yield Curve Predict GDP Growth? The Role of Banks," FRB Atlanta Working Paper 2023-14, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.
    14. Yohei Yamamoto & Naoko Hara, 2022. "Identifying factor‐augmented vector autoregression models via changes in shock variances," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 37(4), pages 722-745, June.
    15. Fatum, Rasmus & Hattori, Takahiro & Yamamoto, Yohei, 2023. "Reserves and risk: Evidence from China," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 134(C).
    16. Harrison, Andre & Reed, Robert R., 2023. "Gross capital inflows, the U.S. economy, and the response of the Federal Reserve," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 139(C).
    17. Fritsche, Jan Philipp & Klein, Mathias & Rieth, Malte, 2021. "Government spending multipliers in (un)certain times," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 203(C).
    18. Refet S. Gürkaynak & Jonathan H. Wright, 2013. "Identification and Inference Using Event Studies," Manchester School, University of Manchester, vol. 81, pages 48-65, September.
    19. repec:diw:diwwpp:dp1448 is not listed on IDEAS
    20. Marcel Fratzscher & Malte Rieth, 2019. "Monetary Policy, Bank Bailouts and the Sovereign-Bank Risk Nexus in the Euro Area," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 23(4), pages 745-775.
    21. Gnewuch, Matthias, 2022. "Spillover effects of sovereign debt-based quantitative easing in the euro area," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 145(C).
    22. Ferreira, Thiago R.T. & Shousha, Samer, 2023. "Determinants of global neutral interest rates," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 145(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Bayesian VARs; Foreign official flows; Global savings glut; Identification via heteroskedasticity; Interest rate conundrum; International reserves; Price impact; U.S. dollar; SVARs;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E43 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Interest Rates: Determination, Term Structure, and Effects
    • E44 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Financial Markets and the Macroeconomy
    • F21 - International Economics - - International Factor Movements and International Business - - - International Investment; Long-Term Capital Movements
    • F30 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - General
    • G10 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - General (includes Measurement and Data)

    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:eee:inecon:v:152:y:2024:i:c:s0022199624001016. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/505552 .

    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.