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Currency intervention and the global portfolio balance effect: Japanese lessons

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  • Gerlach-Kristen, Petra
  • McCauley, Robert N.
  • Ueda, Kazuo

Abstract

This paper extends the analysis of Bernanke et al. (2004) to show that the official Japanese purchases of foreign exchange in 2003–04 seem to have lowered long-term interest rates not only in the United States, but in a wide range of countries, including Japan. It seems that this decline was triggered by the investment of the intervention proceeds in US bonds and that global portfolio rebalancing spread the resulting decline in US dollar yields to bond markets in other currencies, thus easing global monetary conditions. We also show that the global portfolio balance effect is detectable in the response of yields to large Japanese intervention in data before and after 2003/04, though the effect is weaker. While our findings contribute to a growing body of work that points to common responses across bond markets to official portfolio shifts in the form of large-scale bond purchases (“quantitative easing”), our analysis has the advantage of focusing on a pure portfolio shock.

Suggested Citation

  • Gerlach-Kristen, Petra & McCauley, Robert N. & Ueda, Kazuo, 2016. "Currency intervention and the global portfolio balance effect: Japanese lessons," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 1-16.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:jjieco:v:39:y:2016:i:c:p:1-16
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jjie.2015.10.002
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    Cited by:

    1. Fatum, Rasmus & Yetman, James, 2020. "Accumulation of foreign currency reserves and risk-taking," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 102(C).
    2. Solomiia Brychka & Denys Klynovskyi & Dmytro Krukovets & Artem Oharkov, 2019. "Meta-Analysis: Meta-Analysis: Effect of FX interventions on the exchange rate," Modern Economic Studies, Kyiv School of Economics, vol. 2(1), pages 24-44.
    3. Kitamura, Yoshihiro, 2017. "A stopping time approach to assessing the effectiveness of foreign exchange intervention: An application to Japanese data," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 75(C), pages 32-46.
    4. Chinn, Menzie D. & Ito, Hiro & McCauley, Robert N., 2022. "Do central banks rebalance their currency shares?," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 122(C).
    5. Dong He & Robert N McCauley, 2013. "Transmitting Global Liquidity to East Asia: Policy Rates, Bond Yields, Currencies and Dollar Credit," Working Papers 152013, Hong Kong Institute for Monetary Research.
    6. McCauley, Robert N., 2015. "Does the US dollar confer an exorbitant privilege?," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 1-14.
    7. 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.
    8. Rasmus Fatum & James Yetman, 2018. "Does the accumulation of foreign currency reserves affect risk-taking? An event study approach," BIS Papers chapters, in: Bank for International Settlements (ed.), The price, real and financial effects of exchange rates, volume 96, pages 41-52, Bank for International Settlements.
    9. Соломія Бричка & Денис Клиновський & Дмитро Круковець & Артем Огарков, 2019. "Мета-аналіз: ефект fx-інтервенцій на валютний курс," Suchasni ekonomichni doslidzhennja, Kyiv School of Economics, vol. 2(1), pages 24-47.
    10. Michael Curran & Adnan Velic, 2020. "The CAPM, National Stock Market Betas, and Macroeconomic Covariates: a Global Analysis," Open Economies Review, Springer, vol. 31(4), pages 787-820, September.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Intervention; Portfolio balance effect; Japan; Bond market;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E5 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit
    • G12 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Asset Pricing; Trading Volume; Bond Interest Rates
    • O24 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Development Planning and Policy - - - Trade Policy; Factor Movement; Foreign Exchange Policy

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