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Time-Varying Risk Premia in the Foreign Currency Futures Basis

Author

Listed:
  • John Barkoulas

    (Boston College)

  • Christopher F. Baum

    (Boston College)

Abstract

Significant time-varying risk premia exist in the foreign currency futures basis, and these risk premia are meaningfully correlated with common macroeconomic risk factors from equity and bond markets. The stock index dividend yield and the bond default and term spreads in the U.S. markets help forecast the risk premium component of the foreign currency futures basis. The specific source of risk matters, but the relationships are robust across currencies. The currency futures basis is positively associated with the dividend yield and negatively associated with the spread variables. These correlations cannot be attributed to the expected spot price change component of the currency futures basis, thus establishing the presence of a time-varying risk premium component in the currency futures basis.

Suggested Citation

  • John Barkoulas & Christopher F. Baum, 1996. "Time-Varying Risk Premia in the Foreign Currency Futures Basis," Boston College Working Papers in Economics 281., Boston College Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:boc:bocoec:281
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

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    3. Sadorsky, Perry, 2002. "Time-varying risk premiums in petroleum futures prices," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 24(6), pages 539-556, November.
    4. Joshua V. Rosenberg & Leah G. Traub, 2006. "Price discovery in the foreign currency futures and spot market," Staff Reports 262, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
    5. Andrew McKenzie & Matthew Holt, 2002. "Market efficiency in agricultural futures markets," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 34(12), pages 1519-1532.
    6. Robert Mulligan, 2000. "A fractal analysis of foreign exchange markets," International Advances in Economic Research, Springer;International Atlantic Economic Society, vol. 6(1), pages 33-49, February.
    7. P. S. Niveditha, 2025. "Identifying Safe Haven Assets: Evidence from Fractal Market Hypothesis," Computational Economics, Springer;Society for Computational Economics, vol. 65(1), pages 313-335, January.
    8. Michael McKenzie & Heather Mitchell & Robert Brooks & Robert Faff, 2001. "Power ARCH modelling of commodity futures data on the London Metal Exchange," The European Journal of Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 7(1), pages 22-38.
    9. Vít Pošta, 2012. "Estimation of the Time-Varying Risk Premium in the Czech Foreign Exchange Market," Prague Economic Papers, Prague University of Economics and Business, vol. 2012(1), pages 3-17.
    10. Vít Pošta, 2009. "The Role of fundamentals factors of empirical analysis of the Prague stock exchange," Ekonomika a Management, Prague University of Economics and Business, vol. 2009(3).
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    13. Kumar, Satish & Trück, Stefan, 2014. "Unbiasedness and risk premiums in the Indian currency futures market," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 29(C), pages 13-32.

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    JEL classification:

    • F31 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - Foreign Exchange
    • E43 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Interest Rates: Determination, Term Structure, and Effects
    • C52 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric Modeling - - - Model Evaluation, Validation, and Selection

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