IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/tri/wpaper/1506.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Subjective Currency Risk Premia and Deviations from Moving Averages

Author

Listed:
  • Steve Furnagiev
  • Josh Stillwagon

    (Department of Economics, Trinity College)

Abstract

This paper examines the empirical performance of an alternative model of the currency risk premium. The model predicts that the premium on foreign exchange will depend positively on the gap between the exchange rate and its benchmark value. In this paper, we relate the benchmark not to relative prices but to a moving average process in accord with technical analysis. The model is tested against a novel data set of traders' exchange rate forecasts, from 1986:08 to 2013:09, to measure the subjective, ex ante premium. This eliminates the need for a joint hypothesis of rational expectations and enables more direct focus on risk behavior. Using the Cointegrated VAR (CVAR), strong support is found for this hypothesis, as the exchange rate's deviation from a one-year moving average is significant at the 1% level and forms a stationary cointegrating relationship with the premium for the four USD exchange rates examined (against the Swiss franc, Japanese yen, British pound, and Canadian dollar).

Suggested Citation

  • Steve Furnagiev & Josh Stillwagon, 2015. "Subjective Currency Risk Premia and Deviations from Moving Averages," Working Papers 1506, Trinity College, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:tri:wpaper:1506
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www3.trincoll.edu/repec/WorkingPapers2015/WP15-06.pdf
    File Function: First version, 2015
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Martin Eichenbaum & Charles L. Evans, 1995. "Some Empirical Evidence on the Effects of Shocks to Monetary Policy on Exchange Rates," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 110(4), pages 975-1009.
    2. Philippe Bacchetta & Eric Van Wincoop, 2006. "Incomplete information processing: a solution to the forward discount puzzle," Proceedings, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, issue Jun.
    3. Engle, Robert & Granger, Clive, 2015. "Co-integration and error correction: Representation, estimation, and testing," Applied Econometrics, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), vol. 39(3), pages 106-135.
    4. Bacchetta, Philippe & Mertens, Elmar & van Wincoop, Eric, 2009. "Predictability in financial markets: What do survey expectations tell us?," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 28(3), pages 406-426, April.
    5. Cavaglia, Stefano & Verschoor, Willem F. C. & Wolff, Christian C. P., 1993. "Further evidence on exchange rate expectations," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 12(1), pages 78-98, February.
    6. Gourinchas, Pierre-Olivier & Tornell, Aaron, 2004. "Exchange rate puzzles and distorted beliefs," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 64(2), pages 303-333, December.
    7. Kenneth Rogoff, 1996. "The Purchasing Power Parity Puzzle," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 34(2), pages 647-668, June.
    8. Yin-Wong Cheung & Menzie D. Chinn & Ian W. Marsh, 2004. "How do UK-based foreign exchange dealers think their market operates?," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 9(4), pages 289-306.
    9. Kenneth A. Froot & Jeffrey A. Frankel, 1989. "Forward Discount Bias: Is it an Exchange Risk Premium?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 104(1), pages 139-161.
    10. Shlomo Benartzi & Richard H. Thaler, 1995. "Myopic Loss Aversion and the Equity Premium Puzzle," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 110(1), pages 73-92.
    11. Bacchetta, Philippe & van Wincoop, Eric, 2005. "Rational Inattention: A Solution to the Forward Discount Puzzle," CEPR Discussion Papers 5261, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    12. Unknown, 2005. "Forward," 2005 Conference: Slovenia in the EU - Challenges for Agriculture, Food Science and Rural Affairs, November 10-11, 2005, Moravske Toplice, Slovenia 183804, Slovenian Association of Agricultural Economists (DAES).
    13. Daniel Kahneman & Amos Tversky, 2013. "Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision Under Risk," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Leonard C MacLean & William T Ziemba (ed.), HANDBOOK OF THE FUNDAMENTALS OF FINANCIAL DECISION MAKING Part I, chapter 6, pages 99-127, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    14. 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.
    15. Tversky, Amos & Kahneman, Daniel, 1992. "Advances in Prospect Theory: Cumulative Representation of Uncertainty," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 5(4), pages 297-323, October.
    16. Dornbusch, Rudiger, 1976. "Expectations and Exchange Rate Dynamics," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 84(6), pages 1161-1176, December.
    17. Cosmin Ilut, 2012. "Ambiguity Aversion: Implications for the Uncovered Interest Rate Parity Puzzle," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 4(3), pages 33-65, July.
    18. Ronald MacDonald, 2000. "Expectations Formation and Risk in Three Financial Markets: Surveying What the Surveys Say," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 14(1), pages 69-100, February.
    19. Mark, Nelson C & Wu, Yangru, 1998. "Rethinking Deviations from Uncovered Interest Parity: The Role of Covariance Risk and Noise," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 108(451), pages 1686-1706, November.
    20. J. Tobin, 1958. "Liquidity Preference as Behavior Towards Risk," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 25(2), pages 65-86.
    21. Thomas Gehrig & Lukas Menkhoff, 2006. "Extended evidence on the use of technical analysis in foreign exchange," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 11(4), pages 327-338.
    22. Richard H. Thaler & Eric J. Johnson, 1990. "Gambling with the House Money and Trying to Break Even: The Effects of Prior Outcomes on Risky Choice," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 36(6), pages 643-660, June.
    23. Johansen, Soren, 1991. "Estimation and Hypothesis Testing of Cointegration Vectors in Gaussian Vector Autoregressive Models," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 59(6), pages 1551-1580, November.
    24. Fama, Eugene F., 1984. "Forward and spot exchange rates," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 14(3), pages 319-338, November.
    25. Kevin D. Hoover & Soren Johansen & Katarina Juselius, 2008. "Allowing the Data to Speak Freely: The Macroeconometrics of the Cointegrated Vector Autoregression," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(2), pages 251-255, May.
    26. Chinn, Menzie & Frankel, Jeffrey, 1994. "Patterns in Exchange Rate Forecasts for Twenty-five Currencies," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 26(4), pages 759-770, November.
    27. Juselius, Katarina, 2006. "The Cointegrated VAR Model: Methodology and Applications," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199285679.
    28. Vasilev, Aleksandar & Maksumov, Rashid, 2010. "Critical analysis of Chapter 23 of Keynes’s Notes on Mercantilism in The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money (1936)," EconStor Research Reports 155318, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics.
    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. Josh Stillwagon, 2013. "Are Risk Premia Related to Real Exchange Rate Swings? Survey Expectations and I(2) Trends," Working Papers 1318, Trinity College, Department of Economics.
    2. Josh Stillwagon, 2013. "The Excess Returns Puzzle in Currency Markets: Clues on Moving Forward," Working Papers 1313, Trinity College, Department of Economics.
    3. Cavusoglu, Nevin & Goldberg, Michael D. & Stillwagon, Josh, 2021. "Currency returns and downside risk: Debt, volatility, and the gap from benchmark values," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 68(C).
    4. Nevin Cavusoglu & Michael D. Goldberg & Joshua Stillwagon, 2019. "New Evidence on the Portfolio Balance Approach to Currency Returns," Working Papers Series 89, Institute for New Economic Thinking.
    5. Josh R. Stillwagon, 2015. "Can the Consumption Capital Asset Pricing Model Account for Traders' Expected Currency Returns?," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 23(5), pages 1044-1069, November.
    6. Josh Stillwagon, 2013. "Currency Risk and Imperfect Knowledge: Volatility and Long Swings around Benchmark Values," Working Papers 1315, Trinity College, Department of Economics.
    7. Norman C. Miller, 2014. "Exchange Rate Economics," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 14981.
    8. Han, Bing & Hirshleifer, David & Wang, Tracy Yue, 2005. "Investor Overconfidence and the Forward Discount Puzzle," Working Paper Series 2005-21, Ohio State University, Charles A. Dice Center for Research in Financial Economics.
    9. Josh Stillwagon, 2014. "Reexamining what survey data say about currency risk and irrationality using the cointegrated VAR," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 34(3), pages 1631-1643.
    10. Josh Stillwagon, 2013. "Does the Consumption CAPM Help in Accounting for Expected Currency Returns?," Working Papers 1317, Trinity College, Department of Economics.
    11. Ledenyov, Dimitri O. & Ledenyov, Viktor O., 2015. "Wave function method to forecast foreign currencies exchange rates at ultra high frequency electronic trading in foreign currencies exchange markets," MPRA Paper 67470, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    12. Josh R. Stillwagon, 2015. "Exchange Rate Dynamics and Forecast Errors about Persistently Trending Fundamentals," Working Papers 1501, Trinity College, Department of Economics.
    13. Michael Jetter & Alex Nikolsko-Rzhevskyy & Olena Ogrokhina, 2019. "Can policy shifts explain the forward discount puzzle?," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 57(6), pages 1891-1909, December.
    14. Philippe Bacchetta & Eric van Wincoop, 2010. "Infrequent Portfolio Decisions: A Solution to the Forward Discount Puzzle," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(3), pages 870-904, June.
    15. Cosmin Ilut, 2012. "Ambiguity Aversion: Implications for the Uncovered Interest Rate Parity Puzzle," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 4(3), pages 33-65, July.
    16. Stillwagon, Josh R., 2015. "Testing the expectations hypothesis with survey forecasts: The impacts of consumer sentiment and the zero lower bound in an I(2) CVAR," Journal of International Financial Markets, Institutions and Money, Elsevier, vol. 35(C), pages 85-101.
    17. Seongman Moon & Carlos Velasco, 2011. "The Forward Discount Puzzle: Identi cation of Economic Assumptions," Working Papers 1112, Nam Duck-Woo Economic Research Institute, Sogang University (Former Research Institute for Market Economy).
    18. Frydman, R. & Goldberg, M.D., 2003. "Imperfect Knowledge and Asset Price Dynamics: Modeling the Forecasting of Rational Agents, Dynamic Prospect Theory and Uncertainty Premia on Foreign Exchange," Working Papers 03-03, C.V. Starr Center for Applied Economics, New York University.
    19. Scholl, Almuth & Uhlig, Harald, 2008. "New evidence on the puzzles: Results from agnostic identification on monetary policy and exchange rates," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(1), pages 1-13, September.
    20. C. Emre Alper & Oya Pinar Ardic & Salih Fendoglu, 2009. "The Economics Of The Uncovered Interest Parity Condition For Emerging Markets," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 23(1), pages 115-138, February.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Exchange rates; risk premia; survey data; IKE gap model; moving average; CVAR;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F31 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - Foreign Exchange

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:tri:wpaper:1506. 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: Miguel Ramirez (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/edtrius.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.