IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/imf/imfwpa/2013-008.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Behavior of Currencies during Risk-off Episodes

Author

Listed:
  • Mr. Reinout De Bock
  • Mr. Irineu E de Carvalho Filho

Abstract

Episodes of increased global risk aversion, also known as risk-off episodes, have become more frequent and severe since 2007. During these episodes, currency markets exhibit recurrent patterns, as the Japanese yen, Swiss franc, and U.S. dollar appreciate against other G-10 and emerging market currencies. The pattern of these moves can be explained by a combination of fundamental factors, such as the nominal interest rate, the international investment position and measures of exchange rate misalignment, and market-liquidity factors, such as bid-offer spreads and restrictions on international capital flows. We also find that currency performance in a risk-off episode has become more related to a currency?s yield and relationship to broader risks in recent years.

Suggested Citation

  • Mr. Reinout De Bock & Mr. Irineu E de Carvalho Filho, 2013. "The Behavior of Currencies during Risk-off Episodes," IMF Working Papers 2013/008, International Monetary Fund.
    • Handle: RePEc:imf:imfwpa:2013/008
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/cat/longres.aspx?sk=40233
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Chinn, Menzie D. & Ito, Hiro, 2006. "What matters for financial development? Capital controls, institutions, and interactions," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 81(1), pages 163-192, October.
    2. Carvalho Filho Irineu de, 2015. "Risk-Off Episodes and Swiss Franc Appreciation: The Role of Capital Flows," German Economic Review, De Gruyter, vol. 16(4), pages 439-463, December.
    3. De Bock, Reinout & de Carvalho Filho, Irineu, 2015. "The behavior of currencies during risk-off episodes," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 218-234.
    4. Xavier Gabaix & Matteo Maggiori, 2015. "International Liquidity and Exchange Rate Dynamics," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 130(3), pages 1369-1420.
    5. Alan M. Taylor, 2013. "The Great Leveraging," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Viral V Acharya & Thorsten Beck & Douglas D Evanoff & George G Kaufman & Richard Portes (ed.), The Social Value of the Financial Sector Too Big to Fail or Just Too Big?, chapter 4, pages 33-65, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    6. Fratzscher, Marcel, 2009. "What explains global exchange rate movements during the financial crisis?," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 28(8), pages 1390-1407, December.
    7. Jordà, Òscar & Taylor, Alan M., 2012. "The carry trade and fundamentals: Nothing to fear but FEER itself," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(1), pages 74-90.
    8. Mr. Luca A Ricci & Mr. Jonathan David Ostry & Mr. Jaewoo Lee & Mr. Alessandro Prati & Mr. Gian M Milesi-Ferretti, 2008. "Exchange Rate Assessments: CGER Methodologies," IMF Occasional Papers 2008/002, International Monetary Fund.
    9. Grisse, Christian & Nitschka, Thomas, 2015. "On financial risk and the safe haven characteristics of Swiss franc exchange rates," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 32(C), pages 153-164.
    10. McCauley, Robert, 2013. "Risk-On/Risk-Off, Capital Flows, Leverage and Safe Assets," Journal of Financial Perspectives, EY Global FS Institute, vol. 1(2), pages 145-154.
    11. Angelo Ranaldo & Paul Söderlind, 2010. "Safe Haven Currencies," Review of Finance, European Finance Association, vol. 14(3), pages 385-407.
    12. Mr. Masahiro Nozaki, 2010. "Do Currency Fundamentals Matter for Currency Speculators?," IMF Working Papers 2010/039, International Monetary Fund.
    13. Gian-Maria Milesi-Ferretti & Cédric Tille, 2011. "The great retrenchment: international capital flows during the global financial crisis [‘The great trade collapse: what caused it and what does it mean?’]," Economic Policy, CEPR, CESifo, Sciences Po;CES;MSH, vol. 26(66), pages 289-346.
    14. Markus K. Brunnermeier & Stefan Nagel & Lasse H. Pedersen, 2009. "Carry Trades and Currency Crashes," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 2008, Volume 23, pages 313-347, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. Christopher J. Neely, 2011. "A foreign exchange intervention in an era of restraint," Review, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, vol. 93(Sep), pages 303-324.
    16. Habib, Maurizio M. & Stracca, Livio, 2012. "Getting beyond carry trade: What makes a safe haven currency?," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(1), pages 50-64.
    17. Beck , Thorsten & Demirguc-Kunt, Asli & Levine, Ross, 2009. "Financial institutions and markets across countries and over time - data and analysis," Policy Research Working Paper Series 4943, The World Bank.
    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. Goldberg, Linda S. & Krogstrup, Signe, 2023. "International capital flow pressures and global factors," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 146(C).
    2. Virginie Coudert & Cyriac Guillaumin & Hélène Raymond, 2014. "Looking at the other side of carry trades: Are there any safe haven currencies?," EconomiX Working Papers 2014-13, University of Paris Nanterre, EconomiX.
    3. MASUJIMA Yuki, 2019. "Time-Variant Safe-Haven Currency Status and Determinants," Discussion papers 19048, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).
    4. Tachibana, Minoru, 2018. "Safe-haven and hedge currencies for the US, UK, and Euro area stock markets: A copula-based approach," Global Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 35(C), pages 82-96.
    5. Janani Sri S. & Parthajit Kayal & G. Balasubramanian, 2022. "Can Equity be Safe-haven for Investment?," Journal of Emerging Market Finance, Institute for Financial Management and Research, vol. 21(1), pages 32-63, March.
    6. Kim, Young Min & Lee, Seojin, 2023. "Spillover shifts in the FX market: Implication for the behavior of a safe haven currency," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 65(C).
    7. Habib, Maurizio M. & Stracca, Livio, 2012. "Getting beyond carry trade: What makes a safe haven currency?," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 87(1), pages 50-64.
    8. Fernando Eguren-Martin & Andrej Sokol, 2022. "Attention to the Tail(s): Global Financial Conditions and Exchange Rate Risks," IMF Economic Review, Palgrave Macmillan;International Monetary Fund, vol. 70(3), pages 487-519, September.
    9. Hoffmann, Mathias & Studer-Suter, Rahel, 2017. "Systematic consumption risk in currency returns," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 187-208.
    10. Dr. Fabian Fink & Dr. Lukas Frei & Dr. Oliver Gloede, 2020. "Short-term determinants of bilateral exchange rates: A decomposition model for the Swiss franc," Working Papers 2020-21, Swiss National Bank.
    11. Sato, Ayano & Nakata, Hayato & Percy, Jay, 2024. "Time-variant safe haven currencies," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 93(PB), pages 316-328.
    12. Pınar Yeşin, 2017. "Capital Flows and the Swiss Franc," Swiss Journal of Economics and Statistics, Springer;Swiss Society of Economics and Statistics, vol. 153(4), pages 403-436, October.
    13. Fink, Fabian & Frei, Lukas & Gloede, Oliver, 2022. "Global risk sentiment and the Swiss franc: A time-varying daily factor decomposition model," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 122(C).
    14. Hambuckers, J. & Ulm, M., 2023. "On the role of interest rate differentials in the dynamic asymmetry of exchange rates," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 129(C).
    15. Iwata, Kiyonori, 2021. "Are High-Quality Earnings Useful for Voting Shareholders? Evidence from the Top Executive Director Election in Japan," Working Paper Series g-1-26, Hitotsubashi University Center for Financial Research.
    16. Aleksejs Krecetovs & Pasquale Della Corte, 2016. "Macro uncertainty and currency premia," 2016 Meeting Papers 624, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    17. Linda S. Goldberg & Signe Krogstrup, 2018. "International Capital Flow Pressures," NBER Working Papers 24286, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    18. Olivier Blanchard & Gustavo Adler & Irineu de Carvalho Filho, 2015. "Can Foreign Exchange Intervention Stem Exchange Rate Pressures from Global Capital Flow Shocks?," NBER Working Papers 21427, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    19. Katarzyna Czech & Michał Wielechowski & Pavel Kotyza & Irena Benešová & Adriana Laputková, 2020. "Shaking Stability: COVID-19 Impact on the Visegrad Group Countries’ Financial Markets," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(15), pages 1-19, August.
    20. MASUJIMA Yuki, 2017. "Safe Haven Currency and Market Uncertainty: Yen, renminbi, dollar, and alternatives," Discussion papers 17048, Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI).

    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:imf:imfwpa:2013/008. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    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 bibliographic 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.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Akshay Modi (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/imfffus.html .

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

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.