Exchange Rates and Fundamentals

We show analytically that in a rational expectations present value model, an asset price manifests near random walk behavior if fundamentals are I(1) and the factor for discounting future fundamentals is near one. We argue that this result helps explain the well known puzzle that fundamental variables such as relative money supplies, outputs, inflation and interest rates provide little help in predicting changes in floating exchange rates. As well, we show that the data do exhibit a related link suggested by standard models - that the exchange rate helps predict these fundamentals. The implication is that exchange rates and fundamentals are linked in a way that is broadly consistent with asset pricing models of the exchange rate.

Can Information Heterogeneity Explain the Exchange Rate Determination Puzzle?

Empirical evidence shows that macroeconomic fundamentals have little explanatory power for nominal exchange rates. On the other hand, the recent microstructure approach to exchange rates' has shown that most exchange rate volatility at short to medium horizons is related to order flows. This suggests that investor heterogeneity might be key to understanding exchange rate dynamics, in contrast to the common representative agent approach in macroeconomic models of exchange rate determination. To explore this issue, we introduce investor heterogeneity into an otherwise standard monetary model of exchange rate determination. There are two types of heterogeneity: dispersed information about fundamentals and non-fundamentals based heterogeneity (e.g., liquidity traders). We show that information dispersion leads to magnification and endogenous persistence of the impact of non-fundamentals trade on the exchange rate rational confusion about the source of exchange rate fluctuations. Higher order expectations, familiar from Keynes' beauty contest', partly contribute to these results. The implications of the model are consistent with the evidence on the relationship between exchange rates and fundamentals: (i)fundamentals play little role in explaining exchange rate movements in the short to medium run, (ii) over longer horizons the exchange rate is primarily driven by fundamentals, (iii) exchange rate changes are a weak predictor of future fundamentals.

The Financial Crisis and the Stock Markets of the CEE Countries

Stock markets in Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries significantly collapsed during the financial crisis of 2008. We studied whether the collapse of stock markets in CEE countries was due to international linkages of deteriorating fundamentals or international spillovers of speculative bubbles. To this end, we estimated a state-space model to decompose the stock market indexes of three large CEE countries (Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland) into fundamentals and speculative bubbles. We then used the techniques of cointegration analysis to study the long-run linkages of fundamentals and speculative bubbles. Our results suggest that international long-run linkages varied over time. The long-run linkages with the U.S. stock market strengthened in terms of both fundamentals and speculative bubbles during the market jitters caused by the financial crisis of 2008.stock markets, fundamentals, speculative bubbles, cointegration analysis, CEE countries, Kalman filter

Tether fundamentals

Some fundamental aspects of tethers are presented and briefly discussed. The effects of gravity gradients, dumbbell libration in circular orbits, tether control strategies and impact hazards for tethers are among those fundamentals. Also considered are aerodynamic drag, constraints in momentum transfer applications and constraints with permanently deployed tethers. The theoretical feasibility of these concepts are reviewed

Spectra of Urea and Thiourea in the 3µ Region

Observations are reported on the polarized infrared spectra of single crystals of urea and thiourea in the 3µ region. Complex structures accompanying the N [Single Bond] H fundamentals appear, at least in considerable part, to be attributable to combinations and overtones of fundamentals in the neighborhood of 1650 cm^—1

Exchange-Rate Discounting

Economists often describe nominal exchange rates as forward-looking, so that they reflect discounted, expected, future fundamentals. This study applies a method for identifying the discount rate involved, without knowing or measuring fundamentals. Identification arises from assumptions on the stochastic process followed by fundamentals, combined with nonlinearity arising from expected future regime changes. Two applications yield evidence against the present-value model in the form of discount rates which are negative and statistically significant.floating exchange rates, regime switching