IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jfinec/v95y2010i2p148-173.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Resolving the exposure puzzle: The many facets of exchange rate exposure

Author

Listed:
  • Bartram, Söhnke M.
  • Brown, Gregory W.
  • Minton, Bernadette A.

Abstract

Theory predicts sizeable exchange rate (FX) exposure for many firms. However, empirical research has not documented such exposures. To examine this discrepancy, we extend prior theoretical results to model a global firm's FX exposure and show empirically that firms pass through part of currency changes to customers and utilize both operational and financial hedges. For a typical sample firm, pass-through and operational hedging each reduce exposure by 10-15%. Financial hedging with foreign debt, and to a lesser extent FX derivatives, decreases exposure by about 40%. The combination of these factors reduces FX exposures to observed levels.

Suggested Citation

  • Bartram, Söhnke M. & Brown, Gregory W. & Minton, Bernadette A., 2010. "Resolving the exposure puzzle: The many facets of exchange rate exposure," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(2), pages 148-173, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jfinec:v:95:y:2010:i:2:p:148-173
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0304-405X(09)00206-2
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

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

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Campa, Jose Manuel & Goldberg, Linda S, 1999. "Investment, Pass-Through, and Exchange Rates: A Cross-Country Comparison," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 40(2), pages 287-314, May.
    2. Francis, Bill B. & Hasan, Iftekhar & Hunter, Delroy M., 2008. "Does hedging tell the full story? : Reconciling differences in US aggregate and industry-level exchange rate risk premia," Research Discussion Papers 14/2008, Bank of Finland.
    3. Carrieri, Francesca & Errunza, Vihang & Majerbi, Basma, 2006. "Does Emerging Market Exchange Risk Affect Global Equity Prices?," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 41(3), pages 511-540, September.
    4. Bartram, Sohnke M. & Karolyi, G. Andrew, 2006. "The impact of the introduction of the Euro on foreign exchange rate risk exposures," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 13(4-5), pages 519-549, October.
    5. Bartram, Sohnke M., 2004. "Linear and nonlinear foreign exchange rate exposures of German nonfinancial corporations," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 23(4), pages 673-699, June.
    6. Bartram, Söhnke M. & Bodnar, Gordon M., 2012. "Crossing the lines: The conditional relation between exchange rate exposure and stock returns in emerging and developed markets," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 31(4), pages 766-792.
    7. Bartov, Eli & Bodnar, Gordon M. & Kaul, Aditya, 1996. "Exchange rate variability and the riskiness of U.S. multinational firms: Evidence from the breakdown of the Bretton Woods system," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(1), pages 105-132, September.
    8. Kathryn M. E. Dominguez & Linda L. Tesar, 2001. "A Reexamination of Exchange-Rate Exposure," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(2), pages 396-399, May.
    9. Bodnar, Gordon M. & Gentry, William M., 1993. "Exchange rate exposure and industry characteristics: evidence from Canada, Japan, and the USA," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 12(1), pages 29-45, February.
    10. Mitchell A. Petersen & S. Ramu Thiagarajan, 2000. "Risk Measurement and Hedging: With and Without Derivatives," Financial Management, Financial Management Association, vol. 29(4), Winter.
    11. Francis, Bill B. & Hasan, Iftekhar & Hunter, Delroy M., 2008. "Can hedging tell the full story? Reconciling differences in United States aggregate- and industry-level exchange rate risk premium," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(2), pages 169-196, November.
    12. Christos Pantzalis & Betty J Simkins & Paul A Laux, 2001. "Operational Hedges and the Foreign Exchange Exposure of U.S. Multinational Corporations," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 32(4), pages 793-812, December.
    13. Bartram, Söhnke M., 2008. "What lies beneath: Foreign exchange rate exposure, hedging and cash flows," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 32(8), pages 1508-1521, August.
    14. Williamson, Rohan, 2001. "Exchange rate exposure and competition: evidence from the automotive industry," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 59(3), pages 441-475, March.
    15. von Ungern Sternberg, Thomas & von Weizsacker, C C, 1990. "Strategic Foreign Exchange Management," Journal of Industrial Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 38(4), pages 381-395, June.
    16. Mello, Antonio S. & Parsons, John E. & Triantis, Alexander J., 1995. "An integrated model of multinational flexibility and financial hedging," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(1-2), pages 27-51, August.
    17. Opler, Tim & Pinkowitz, Lee & Stulz, Rene & Williamson, Rohan, 1999. "The determinants and implications of corporate cash holdings," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(1), pages 3-46, April.
    18. Bernard Dumas & Gordon Bodnar & Richard Marston, 1997. "Pass-Through and Exposure," Working Papers hal-00605600, HAL.
    19. George Allayannis & Gregory W. Brown & Leora F. Klapper, 2003. "Capital Structure and Financial Risk: Evidence from Foreign Debt Use in East Asia," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 58(6), pages 2667-2710, December.
    20. Christine R Hekman, 1985. "A Financial Model of Foreign Exchange Exposure," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 16(2), pages 83-99, June.
    21. Gregory W. Brown & Peter R. Crabb & David Haushalter, 2006. "Are Firms Successful at Selective Hedging?," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 79(6), pages 2925-2950, November.
    22. Doidge, Craig & Griffin, John & Williamson, Rohan, 2006. "Measuring the economic importance of exchange rate exposure," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 13(4-5), pages 550-576, October.
    23. Bartov, Eli & Bodnar, Gordon M, 1994. "Firm Valuation, Earnings Expectations, and the Exchange-Rate Exposure Effect," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 49(5), pages 1755-1785, December.
    24. Guay, Wayne & Kothari, S. P, 2003. "How much do firms hedge with derivatives?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(3), pages 423-461, December.
    25. Dumas, Bernard & Solnik, Bruno, 1995. "The World Price of Foreign Exchange Risk," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 50(2), pages 445-479, June.
    26. Tim Adam & Sudipto Dasgupta & Sheridan Titman, 2007. "Financial Constraints, Competition, and Hedging in Industry Equilibrium," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 62(5), pages 2445-2473, October.
    27. De Santis, Giorgio & Gerard, Bruno, 1998. "How big is the premium for currency risk?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(3), pages 375-412, September.
    28. Dewenter, Kathryn L. & Higgins, Robert C. & Simin, Timothy T., 2005. "Can event study methods solve the currency exposure puzzle?," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 13(2), pages 119-144, March.
    29. Allayannis, George & Ihrig, Jane, 2001. "Exposure and Markups," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 14(3), pages 805-835.
    30. Jorion, Philippe, 1990. "The Exchange-Rate Exposure of U.S. Multinationals," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 63(3), pages 331-345, July.
    31. Chow, Edward H & Lee, Wayne Y & Solt, Michael E, 1997. "The Exchange-Rate Risk Exposure of Asset Returns," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 70(1), pages 105-123, January.
    32. Jorion, Philippe, 1991. "The Pricing of Exchange Rate Risk in the Stock Market," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 26(3), pages 363-376, September.
    33. Griffin, John M & Stulz, Rene M, 2001. "International Competition and Exchange Rate Shocks: A Cross-Country Industry Analysis of Stock Returns," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 14(1), pages 215-241.
    34. Shapiro, Alan C, 1975. "Exchange Rate Changes, Inflation, and the Value of the Multinational Corporation," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 30(2), pages 485-502, May.
    35. Graham, John R. & Harvey, Campbell R., 2001. "The theory and practice of corporate finance: evidence from the field," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(2-3), pages 187-243, May.
    36. Robert Dekle, 2005. "Exchange Rate Exposure and Foreign Market Competition: Evidence from Japanese Firms," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 78(1), pages 281-300, January.
    37. Dominguez, Kathryn M.E. & Tesar, Linda L., 2006. "Exchange rate exposure," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(1), pages 188-218, January.
    38. Simi Kedia & Abon Mozumdar, 2003. "Foreign Currency Denominated Debt: An Empirical Examination," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 76(4), pages 521-546, October.
    39. Alexander J. Triantis, 2000. "Real Options And Corporate Risk Management," Journal of Applied Corporate Finance, Morgan Stanley, vol. 13(2), pages 64-73, June.
    40. David Parsley Helen Popper, 2002. "Exchange Rate Pegs and Foreign Exchange Exposure in East Asia," International Finance 0211001, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    41. Gordon M. Bodnar & M.H. Franco Wong, 2003. "Estimating Exchange Rate Exposures: Issues in Model Structure," Financial Management, Financial Management Association, vol. 32(1), Spring.
    42. Marston, Richard C., 2001. "The effects of industry structure on economic exposure," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 20(2), pages 149-164, April.
    43. Juann H. Hung, 1992. "Assessing the exchange rate's impact on U.S. manufacturing profits," Quarterly Review, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, vol. 17(Win), pages 44-63.
    44. George Allayannis & Jane Ihrig & James P. Weston, 2001. "Exchange-Rate Hedging: Financial versus Operational Strategies," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(2), pages 391-395, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Muller, Aline & Verschoor, Willem F.C., 2006. "Foreign exchange risk exposure: Survey and suggestions," Journal of Multinational Financial Management, Elsevier, vol. 16(4), pages 385-410, October.
    2. Söhnke M. Bartram & Gordon M. Bodnar, 2007. "The exchange rate exposure puzzle," Managerial Finance, Emerald Group Publishing, vol. 33(9), pages 642-666, August.
    3. Bartram, Söhnke M. & Bodnar, Gordon M., 2012. "Crossing the lines: The conditional relation between exchange rate exposure and stock returns in emerging and developed markets," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 31(4), pages 766-792.
    4. Muller, Aline & Verschoor, Willem F.C., 2006. "Asymmetric foreign exchange risk exposure: Evidence from U.S. multinational firms," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 13(4-5), pages 495-518, October.
    5. Dominguez, Kathryn M.E. & Tesar, Linda L., 2006. "Exchange rate exposure," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(1), pages 188-218, January.
    6. Francis, Bill B. & Hasan, Iftekhar & Hunter, Delroy M., 2008. "Can hedging tell the full story? Reconciling differences in United States aggregate- and industry-level exchange rate risk premium," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(2), pages 169-196, November.
    7. Krapl, Alain & O'Brien, Thomas J., 2015. "Direct versus indirect regression estimates of foreign exchange cash flow exposure," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 103-112.
    8. Aggarwal, Raj & Harper, Joel T., 2010. "Foreign exchange exposure of "domestic" corporations," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 29(8), pages 1619-1636, December.
    9. Du, Ding, 2014. "Persistent exchange-rate movements and stock returns," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 28(C), pages 36-53.
    10. repec:dau:papers:123456789/15237 is not listed on IDEAS
    11. Mikael C. Bergbrant & Kaysia Campbell & Delroy M. Hunter, 2014. "Firm-Level Competition and Exchange Rate Exposure: Evidence from a Global Survey of Firms," Financial Management, Financial Management Association International, vol. 43(4), pages 885-916, December.
    12. Chaieb, Ines & Mazzotta, Stefano, 2013. "Unconditional and conditional exchange rate exposure," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 32(C), pages 781-808.
    13. Doidge, Craig & Griffin, John & Williamson, Rohan, 2006. "Measuring the economic importance of exchange rate exposure," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 13(4-5), pages 550-576, October.
    14. Lestano, Lestano, 2015. "Asymmetric Exchange Rate Exposure in Indonesian Industry Sectors," MPRA Paper 64357, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    15. Chang, Feng-Yi & Hsin, Chin-Wen & Shiah-Hou, Shin-Rong, 2013. "A re-examination of exposure to exchange rate risk: The impact of earnings management and currency derivative usage," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(8), pages 3243-3257.
    16. Krapl, Alain A., 2020. "The time-varying diversifiability of corporate foreign exchange exposure," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 65(C).
    17. Du, Ding & Hu, Ou & Wu, Hong, 2014. "Emerging market currency exposure: Taiwan," Journal of Multinational Financial Management, Elsevier, vol. 28(C), pages 47-61.
    18. Aysun, Uluc & Guldi, Melanie, 2011. "Exchange rate exposure: A nonparametric approach," Emerging Markets Review, Elsevier, vol. 12(4), pages 321-337.
    19. Matthias EFING & Rüdiger FAHLENBRACH & Christoph HERPFER & Philipp KRÜGER, 2015. "How Do Investors and Firms React to an Unexpected Currency Appreciation Shock?," Swiss Finance Institute Research Paper Series 15-65, Swiss Finance Institute, revised Jan 2016.
    20. Lee, Seul Ki & Jang, SooCheong (Shawn), 2011. "Foreign exchange exposure of US tourism-related firms," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 32(4), pages 934-948.
    21. Horst Entorf & Gösta Jamin, 2007. "German Exchange Rate Exposure at DAX and Aggregate Levels, International Trade and the Role of Exchange Rate Adjustment Costs," German Economic Review, Verein für Socialpolitik, vol. 8(3), pages 344-374, August.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Competition Hedging FX exposure Derivatives International finance;

    JEL classification:

    • F4 - International Economics - - Macroeconomic Aspects of International Trade and Finance
    • F3 - International Economics - - International Finance
    • G3 - Financial Economics - - Corporate Finance and Governance

    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:jfinec:v:95:y:2010:i:2:p:148-173. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Nithya Sathishkumar). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/505576 .

    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 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.

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

    IDEAS is a RePEc service hosted by the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis . RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.