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Expectations Driven Distortions in the Foreign Exchange Market

Author

Listed:
  • Frank Westerhoff

    (University of Osnabrück)

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to explain the phenomenon of distortions in the foreign exchange market. Distortions in the sense of (lasting) deviations of the exchange rate from its fundamental value are a sign of market inefficiency. One well known example for such a phenomenon is the bubble path of the US Dollar in the eighties. The starting point for our investigation is a chartists-fundamentalists model. Motivated by empirical observations a model is developed where boundedly rational market participants choose at the beginning of each new trading period between a technical and a fundamental trading rule to determine their speculative investment positions. If one subscribes to the strong assumption that the agents are able to figure out the true fundamental value of the exchange rate, then the exchange rate fluctuates in a complex way around its fundamental value and the foreign exchange market is more or less efficient. However, the contribution of this paper is to model the perception process of the fundamental exchange rate more realistically on the grounds of psychological evidence. Within this framework forces which influence the distortion are analysed: While the agents follow the news arrival process closely, mistakes in the information processing occur. These mistakes are propagated over time since the agents tend to stick to their previously perceived fundamental value (anchor heuristic). Moreover, if the agents belief that the spot exchange rate itself contains relevant information and thus incorporate it into their "anchor", the exchange rate becomes even more disconnected with its true fundamental. Nevertheless, in the long run the agents react to macroeconomic imbalances and thus adjust their perception. By this learning procedure, the distortion eventually is corrected and some long-term mean-reversion sets in. Note that the results are not the outcome of curious exchange rate fluctuations but that the generated time series shares some basic stylized facts with the empirical data. For instance, the model possesses the property of a non stable, fat-tailed distribution of the returns.

Suggested Citation

  • Frank Westerhoff, 2001. "Expectations Driven Distortions in the Foreign Exchange Market," CeNDEF Workshop Papers, January 2001 1A.3, Universiteit van Amsterdam, Center for Nonlinear Dynamics in Economics and Finance.
    • Handle: RePEc:ams:cdws01:1a.3
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    Cited by:

    1. Katusiime, Lorna & Shamsuddin, Abul & Agbola, Frank W., 2015. "Foreign exchange market efficiency and profitability of trading rules: Evidence from a developing country," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 35(C), pages 315-332.
    2. Reitz, Stefan & Rülke, Jan-Christoph & Stadtmann, Georg, 2012. "Nonlinear expectations in speculative markets – Evidence from the ECB survey of professional forecasters," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 36(9), pages 1349-1363.
    3. Ling-Yun He, 2010. "Is Price Behavior Scaling and Multiscaling in a Dealer Market? Perspectives from Multi-Agent Based Experiments," Computational Economics, Springer;Society for Computational Economics, vol. 36(3), pages 263-282, October.
    4. Mignot, Sarah, 2025. "Coevolution of stock prices and their perceived fundamental value," BERG Working Paper Series 200, Bamberg University, Bamberg Economic Research Group.
    5. Reitz, Stefan & Rülke, Jan & Stadtmann, Georg, 2012. "Nonlinear Expectations in Speculative Markets," VfS Annual Conference 2012 (Goettingen): New Approaches and Challenges for the Labor Market of the 21st Century 62045, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    6. Gardini, Laura & Radi, Davide & Schmitt, Noemi & Sushko, Iryna & Westerhoff, Frank, 2022. "Currency manipulation and currency wars: Analyzing the dynamics of competitive central bank interventions," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 145(C).
    7. Schmidt, Robert & Wollmershäuser, Timo, 2004. "Sterilized Foreign Exchange Market Interventions in a Chartist-Fundamentalist Exchange Rate Model," W.E.P. - Würzburg Economic Papers 50, University of Würzburg, Department of Economics.
    8. Sashikanta Khuntia & J. K. Pattanayak, 2020. "Evolving Efficiency of Exchange Rate Movement: An Evidence from Indian Foreign Exchange Market," Global Business Review, International Management Institute, vol. 21(4), pages 956-969, August.
    9. Neslihan Topbas, 2014. "Tests of Rationality in Turkish Foreign Exchange Market," Central Bank Review, Research and Monetary Policy Department, Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey, vol. 14(2), pages 65-78.
    10. Naimzada, Ahmad & Pireddu, Marina, 2015. "Real and financial interacting markets: A behavioral macro-model," Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 111-131.
    11. Menkhoff, Lukas & Rebitzky, Rafael R. & Schröder, Michael, 2009. "Heterogeneity in exchange rate expectations: Evidence on the chartist-fundamentalist approach," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 70(1-2), pages 241-252, May.
    12. Sarah Mignot & Frank Westerhoff, 2025. "Explaining the Stylized Facts of Foreign Exchange Markets with a Simple Agent-based Version of Paul de Grauwe’s Chaotic Exchange Rate Model," Computational Economics, Springer;Society for Computational Economics, vol. 65(2), pages 845-876, February.
    13. Westerhoff, Frank H., 2004. "Multiasset Market Dynamics," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 8(5), pages 596-616, November.
    14. Federico Bassi & Raquel Ramos & Dany Lang, 2023. "Bet against the trend and cash in profits: An agent-based model of endogenous fluctuations of exchange rates," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 33(2), pages 429-472, April.
    15. Scarlat, E.I. & Stan, Cristina & Cristescu, C.P., 2007. "Chaotic features in Romanian transition economy as reflected onto the currency exchange rate," Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, Elsevier, vol. 33(2), pages 396-404.
    16. Lukas Menkhoff & Mark P. Taylor, 2007. "The Obstinate Passion of Foreign Exchange Professionals: Technical Analysis," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 45(4), pages 936-972, December.
    17. Kaltwasser, Pablo Rovira, 2010. "Uncertainty about fundamentals and herding behavior in the FOREX market," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 389(6), pages 1215-1222.
    18. Carl Chiarella & Xue-Zhong He & Min Zheng, 2013. "Heterogeneous expectations and exchange rate dynamics," The European Journal of Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 19(5), pages 392-419, May.
    19. Georges, Christophre, 2006. "Learning with misspecification in an artificial currency market," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 60(1), pages 70-84, May.
    20. Murphy, Austin, 2008. "An empirical investigation of investor expectations in the currency market," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 17(1), pages 108-133.
    21. De Grauwe, Paul & Rovira Kaltwasser, Pablo, 2012. "Animal spirits in the foreign exchange market," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 36(8), pages 1176-1192.
    22. Raquel Almeida Ramos & Federico Bassi & Dany Lang, 2020. "Bet against the trend and cash in profits," DISCE - Working Papers del Dipartimento di Economia e Finanza def090, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Dipartimenti e Istituti di Scienze Economiche (DISCE).
    23. Luis Goncalves de Faria, 2022. "An Agent-Based Model With Realistic Financial Time Series: A Method for Agent-Based Models Validation," Papers 2206.09772, arXiv.org.
    24. Soumya Datta, 2019. "Exchange rate dynamics under limits of arbitrage and heterogeneous expectations," Journal of Economic Interaction and Coordination, Springer;Society for Economic Science with Heterogeneous Interacting Agents, vol. 14(3), pages 521-550, September.
    25. Ahmad Naimzada & Marina Pireddu, 2014. "Real and financial interacting oscillators: a behavioral macro-model with animal spirits," Working Papers 268, University of Milano-Bicocca, Department of Economics, revised Feb 2014.

    More about this item

    Keywords

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    JEL classification:

    • F31 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - Foreign Exchange
    • G14 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Information and Market Efficiency; Event Studies; Insider Trading

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