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An Over-the-Counter Approach to the FOREX Market

Author

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  • Athanasios Geromichalos
  • Kuk Mo Jung

    (Department of Economics, University of California Davis)

Abstract

The FOREX market is an over-the-counter market (in fact, the largest in the world) characterized by bilateral trade, intermediation, and significant bid-ask spreads. The existing international macroeconomics literature has failed to account for these stylized facts largely due to the fact that it models the FOREX as a standard Walrasian market, therefore overlooking some important institutional details of this market. In this paper, we build on recent developments in monetary theory and finance to construct a dynamic general equilibrium model of intermediation in the FOREX market. A key concept in our approach is that immediate trade between buyers and sellers of foreign currencies is obstructed by search frictions (e.g., due to geographic dispersion). We use our framework to compute standard measures of FOREX market liquidity, such as bid-ask spreads and trade volume, and to study how these measures are affected both by macroeconomic fundamentals and the FOREX market microstructure. We also show that the FOREX market microstructure critically affects the volume of international trade and, consequently, welfare. Hence, our paper highlights that modeling the FOREX as a frictionless Walrasian market is not without loss of generality.

Suggested Citation

  • Athanasios Geromichalos & Kuk Mo Jung, 2014. "An Over-the-Counter Approach to the FOREX Market," Working Papers 156, University of California, Davis, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:cda:wpaper:156
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    As found by EconAcademics.org, the blog aggregator for Economics research:
    1. An Over-the-Counter Approach to the FOREX Market
      by Christian Zimmermann in NEP-DGE blog on 2015-05-28 01:06:07

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    Cited by:

    1. Athanasios Geromichalos & Kuk Mo Jung, 2019. "Monetary policy and efficiency in over-the-counter financial trade," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 52(4), pages 1699-1754, November.
    2. Kuk Mo Jung, 2017. "Liquidity Risk And Time-Varying Correlation Between Equity And Currency Returns," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 55(2), pages 898-919, April.
    3. Jung, Kuk Mo & Pyun, Ju Hyun, 2016. "International reserves for emerging economies: A liquidity approach," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 230-257.
    4. Liu, Tao & Lu, Dong & Zhang, Ruifeng, 2017. "Currency choice in international trade: a new monetarist approach and firm-level evidence," MPRA Paper 79149, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Liu, Tao, 2015. "Trade finance and international currency," MPRA Paper 64362, University Library of Munich, Germany.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    FOREX market; over-the-counter markets; search frictions; bargaining; monetarysearch models;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D4 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design
    • E31 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Price Level; Inflation; Deflation
    • E52 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Monetary Policy
    • F31 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - Foreign Exchange

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