IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/3319.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Re-Interpreting the Failure of Foreign Exchange Market Efficiency Tests:Small Transaction Costs, Big Hysteresis Bands

Author

Listed:
  • Richard E. Baldwin

Abstract

Small transaction costs and uncertainty imply that optimal cross-currency interest rate speculation is marked by a first-order hysteresis band. Consequently uncovered interest parity does not hold and market efficiency tests based on it are misspecified. Indeed measured prediction errors are a combination of true prediction errors and a wedge that consists of the "option value" of being in foreign currency and either plus or minus the transaction cost. Due to the nature of this wedge, we should expect measured prediction errors to be serially correlated, correlated with the current forward rate and perhaps have a non-zero mean, if the interest differential itself is serially correlated. The existence of the wedge helps account both for the failure of market efficiency tests and the difficulties in finding an empirically successful model of the risk premium.

Suggested Citation

  • Richard E. Baldwin, 1990. "Re-Interpreting the Failure of Foreign Exchange Market Efficiency Tests:Small Transaction Costs, Big Hysteresis Bands," NBER Working Papers 3319, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:3319
    Note: ITI IFM
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w3319.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hodrick, Robert J. & Srivastava, Sanjay, 1984. "An investigation of risk and return in forward foreign exchange," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 3(1), pages 5-29, April.
    2. Richard Baldwin, 1989. "Sunk-Cost Hysteresis," NBER Working Papers 2911, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Frankel, Jeffrey A & Froot, Kenneth A, 1987. "Using Survey Data to Test Standard Propositions Regarding Exchange Rate Expectations," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 77(1), pages 133-153, March.
    4. Campbell, John Y. & Clarida, Richard H., 1987. "The term structure of euromarket interest rates : An empirical investigation," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(1), pages 25-44, January.
    5. Samuel Bentolila & Giuseppe Bertola, 1990. "Firing Costs and Labour Demand: How Bad is Eurosclerosis?," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 57(3), pages 381-402.
    6. Longworth, David, 1981. "Testing the Efficiency of the Canadian-U.S. Exchange Market under the Assumption of no Risk Premium," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 36(1), pages 43-49, March.
    7. Dixit, Avinash K, 1989. "Entry and Exit Decisions under Uncertainty," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 97(3), pages 620-638, June.
    8. Frankel, Jeffrey A., 1982. "In search of the exchange risk premium: A six-currency test assuming mean-variance optimization," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 1(1), pages 255-274, January.
    9. Mussa, Michael, 1981. "Sticky Prices and Disequilibrium Adjustment in a Rational Model of the Inflationary Process," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 71(5), pages 1020-1027, December.
    10. Paul R. Krugman, 1985. "Is the strong dollar sustainable?," Proceedings - Economic Policy Symposium - Jackson Hole, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, pages 103-155.
    11. Hsieh, David A., 1984. "Tests of rational expectations and no risk premium in forward exchange markets," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(1-2), pages 173-184, August.
    12. Levich, Richard M., 1985. "Empirical studies of exchange rates: Price behavior, rate determination and market efficiency," Handbook of International Economics, in: R. W. Jones & P. B. Kenen (ed.), Handbook of International Economics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 19, pages 979-1040, Elsevier.
    13. Fama, Eugene F., 1984. "Forward and spot exchange rates," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 14(3), pages 319-338, November.
    14. Paul R. Krugman, 1981. "Consumption Preferences, Asset Demands, and Distribution Effects in International Financial Markets," NBER Working Papers 0651, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. Richard Meese & Kenneth J. Singleton, 1980. "Rational expectations, risk premia, and the market for spot and forward exchange," International Finance Discussion Papers 165, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    16. Frenkel, Jacob A & Levich, Richard M, 1977. "Transaction Costs and Interest Arbitrage: Tranquil versus Turbulent Periods," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 85(6), pages 1209-1226, December.
    17. Engel, Charles M., 1984. "Testing for the absence of expected real profits from forward market speculation," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(3-4), pages 299-308, November.
    18. Domowitz, Ian & Hakkio, Craig S., 1985. "Conditional variance and the risk premium in the foreign exchange market," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(1-2), pages 47-66, August.
    19. Richard Baldwin & Richard Lyons, 1989. "Exchange Rate Hysteresis: The Real Effects of Large vs Small Policy Misalignments," NBER Working Papers 2828, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    20. Avinash Dixit, 1991. "Analytical Approximations in Models of Hysteresis," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 58(1), pages 141-151.
    21. Cumby, Robert E & Obstfeld, Maurice, 1981. "A Note on Exchange-Rate Expectations and Nominal Interest Differentials: A Test of the Fisher Hypothesis," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 36(3), pages 697-703, June.
    22. McCormick, Frank, 1979. "Covered Interest Arbitrage: Unexploited Profits? Comment," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 87(2), pages 411-417, April.
    23. Frank McCormick, 1979. "Covered-interest arbitrage: unexploited profits: comment," International Finance Discussion Papers 132, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    24. George M. Constantinides, 2005. "Capital Market Equilibrium with Transaction Costs," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Sudipto Bhattacharya & George M Constantinides (ed.), Theory Of Valuation, chapter 7, pages 207-227, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    25. Roll, Richard & Solnik, Bruno, 1977. "A pure foreign exchange asset pricing model," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 7(2), pages 161-179, May.
    26. Paul R. Krugman, 1988. "Target Zones and Exchange Rate Dynamics," NBER Working Papers 2481, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    27. Meese, Richard A. & Rogoff, Kenneth, 1983. "Empirical exchange rate models of the seventies : Do they fit out of sample?," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 14(1-2), pages 3-24, February.
    28. Bilson, John F O, 1981. "The "Speculative Efficiency" Hypothesis," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 54(3), pages 435-451, July.
    29. Brennan, Michael J & Schwartz, Eduardo S, 1985. "Evaluating Natural Resource Investments," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 58(2), pages 135-157, April.
    30. Avinash Dixit, 1989. "Hysteresis, Import Penetration, and Exchange Rate Pass-Through," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 104(2), pages 205-228.
    31. Jeffrey A. Frankel & Kenneth A. Froot, 1985. "Using Survey Data to Test Some Standard Propositions Regarding Exchange Rate Expectations," NBER Working Papers 1672, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    32. Rogoff, Kenneth, 1984. "On the effects of sterilized intervention : An analysis of weekly data," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 14(2), pages 133-150, September.
    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. Lewis, Karen K., 1995. "Puzzles in international financial markets," Handbook of International Economics, in: G. M. Grossman & K. Rogoff (ed.), Handbook of International Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 37, pages 1913-1971, Elsevier.
    2. Ross Levine, 1988. "The forward exchange rate bias: a new explanation," International Finance Discussion Papers 338, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    3. Frederick Nieuwland & Willem Verschoor & Christian Wolff, 2000. "Exchange risk premia in the European monetary system," Applied Financial Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 10(4), pages 351-360.
    4. Engel, Charles, 1996. "The forward discount anomaly and the risk premium: A survey of recent evidence," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 3(2), pages 123-192, June.
    5. Jeffrey A. Frankel & Kenneth A. Froot, 1986. "The Dollar as Speculative Bubble: A Tale of Fundamentalists and Chartists," NBER Working Papers 1854, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Hodrick, Robert J. & Srivastava, Sanjay, 1987. "Foreign currency futures," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 22(1-2), pages 1-24, February.
    7. Grossmann, Axel & Simpson, Marc W., 2015. "Bid-ask spreads, deviations from PPP and the forward prediction error: The case of the British pound and the euro," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 124-139.
    8. W A Razzak, 1998. "The forward rate unbiasedness hypothesis in inflation-targeting regimes," Reserve Bank of New Zealand Discussion Paper Series G99/3, Reserve Bank of New Zealand, revised Aug 1999.
    9. Sonia Pangusión Espinosa., "undated". "Testing Uncovered Interest Rate Parity: The Spanish case," Studies on the Spanish Economy 128, FEDEA.
    10. Levine, Ross, 1989. "The pricing of forward exchange rates," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 8(2), pages 163-179, June.
    11. Kenneth A. Froot & Jeffrey A. Frankel, 1986. "Interpreting Tests of Forward Discount Bias Using Survey Data on Exchange Rate Expectations," NBER Working Papers 1963, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Verschoor, Willem F. C. & Wolff, Christian C. P., 2001. "Exchange risk premia, expectations formation and "news" in the Mexican peso/U.S. dollar forward exchange rate market," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 10(2), pages 157-174.
    13. Simpson, Marc W. & Grossmann, Axel, 2014. "An examination of the forward prediction error of U.S. dollar exchange rates and how they are related to bid-ask spreads, purchasing power parity disequilibria, and forward premium asymmetry," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 28(C), pages 221-238.
    14. Raj Aggarwal & Winston T. Lin & Sunil K. Mohanty, 2008. "Are Forward Exchange Rates Rational Forecasts of Future Spot Rates? An Improved Econometric Analysis for the Major Currencies," Multinational Finance Journal, Multinational Finance Journal, vol. 12(1-2), pages 1-20, March-Jun.
    15. Richard M. Levich, 1983. "Empirical Studies of Exchange Rates: Price Behavior, Rate Determinationand Market Efficiency," NBER Working Papers 1112, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    16. Waheed, Muhammad, 2009. "Forward rate unbiased hypothesis, risk premium and exchange rate expectations: estimates on Pakistan Rupee-US Dollar," MPRA Paper 33167, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised Jul 2010.
    17. Jeffrey A. Frankel & Kenneth A. Froot, 1985. "Using Survey Data to Test Some Standard Propositions Regarding Exchange Rate Expectations," NBER Working Papers 1672, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    18. MacDonald, Ronald, 2000. "Is the foreign exchange market 'risky'? Some new survey-based results," Journal of Multinational Financial Management, Elsevier, vol. 10(1), pages 1-14, January.
    19. Brenner, Robin J. & Kroner, Kenneth F., 1995. "Arbitrage, Cointegration, and Testing the Unbiasedness Hypothesis in Financial Markets," Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 30(1), pages 23-42, March.
    20. Levine, Ross, 1989. "An International Arbitrage Pricing Model with PPP Deviations," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 27(4), pages 587-599, October.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:nbr:nberwo:3319. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.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.