Demand-Driven Risk Premia in Foreign Exchange and Bond Markets

We establish an empirical framework that causally identifies how Treasury demand shocks transmit across foreign exchange and global bond markets, providing direct validation of quantity-driven theories of international risk premia. Our identification exploits predetermined auction supply to isolate demand shocks from high-frequency movements in Treasury futures prices around Treasury auctions. A one-standard-deviation increase in Treasury demand causes the U.S. dollar to depreciate by 2 basis points against G9 currencies while generating 10-basis-point increases in foreign bond prices. Effects persist for two weeks, indicating meaningful economic impacts. The transmission mechanism varies systematically across countries: those with lower U.S. short-rate correlations exhibit stronger currency responses but weaker bond effects, while higher-correlation countries show the opposite pattern. This cross-sectional variation provides empirical support for models of segmented markets where global arbitrageurs link exchange rates and bond risk premia.