Import Protection, Capital Inflows, and Real Exchange Rate Dynamics

This paper focuses on the effect of import protection on the response of the real exchange rate to capital flows. The central hypothesis is that barriers to imports blunt the expenditure and production shifting effects of changes in relative prices, and hence the ability of the real exchange rate to equilibrate the economy in response to international capital flows. Employing a cross-section approach, the study focuses on three broadly similar countries but with very different levels of protection: Argentina, Australia, and Canada. The empirical results are consistent with the central hypothesis.import protection; real exchange rate

How volatile are exchange rates?

This paper briefly describes the broad features of major exchange rates since the early 1970s, and compares these features with those of the 1960s. Also included is a brief analysis of whether these features are manifested in real interest rates and in commodity prices, with seemingly curious result

Does the single currency for EU resolve the exchange rate volatility and purchasing power parity puzzle?

This paper provides a new test of PPP and its relevance for the euro. Principal component analysis (PCA) is introduced to construct a ?pooled? measure of inflation for the 12 euro countries. This measure is used to test the PPP condition for the euro against three major currencies, namely, those of the USA, UK and Japan. The test results are then used to measure the speed of adjustment of the deviations from PPP using rolling and recursive regressions procedures. Finally, the forecasting accuracy of the PPP-based euro exchange rates is compared with those given by the random walk model, and the synthetic euro series provided by the European Central Bank. In general, the results are supportive of PPP

Modeling volatility in foreign currency option pricing

This paper presents a general optimization framework to forecast put and call option prices by exploiting the volatility of the options prices. The approach is flexible in that different objective functions for predicting the underlying volatility can be modified and adapted in the proposed framework. The framework is implemented empirically for four major currencies, including Euro. The forecast performance of this framework is compared with the forecast performance of the Multiplicative Error Model (MEM) of implied volatility and the GARCH(1,1). The results indicate that the proposed framework is capable of producing reasonably accurate forecasts for put and call prices

Currency option pricing and realised volatility

Volatility is a key parameter in currency option pricing. This paper examines alternative specifications ofthe volatility input to the Black-Scholes option pricing procedure. The focus is the relative performance ofimplied, realized, and GARCH-based models as predictors of market volatility to forecast currency optionsprices. Using exchange-traded, daily and intra-daily data for three major European currencies, the results indicate that the realized volatility model tends to outperform the other two specifications, both in-sample and out-of-sample. This result is intuitively appealing and expected to facilitate resolution of other problems in risk management applications

Notes on Exchange Rates and Commodity Prices

Brief analytical notes on the interactions between exchange rates and commodity prices. Gold and iron-ore are used as examples of the issues raised. The paper also presents a stylised model to determine the effects of exchange-rate changes on the internal and external prices of commodities. Also included is a simple geometric exposition of the issues.

Efficiency of the foreign currency options market

This paper provides a new test of the efficiency of the currency option markets for four major currencies-British Pound, Euro, Swiss Frank and Japanese Yen vis-a-vis the U.S. dollar. The approach is to simulate trading strategies to see if the well-accepted no-arbitrage condition of put–call parity (PCP) holds in a trading environment. Augmented Dickey–Fuller and Philips–Perron tests are used to check for the presence of unit roots in the data, followed by a formal econometric analysis. The results indicate that the most currency option prices do not violate the PCP conditions, when transaction costs are allowed for

Influence of transaction costs on foreign exchange option contracts: intra-daily tests

This paper tests the impact of transactions cost specification on deviations from lower boundary and put-call parity properties. Using PHLX traded foreign exchange options, prices for puts and calls are matched to the nearest five minutes. The results indicate how boundaries on the arbitrage profit function determined by alternative measures of transactions costs can impact the interpretation of deviations from distribution free properties of options such as put-call parity

Put-call parity, transactions costs and PHLX currency options: intra-daily tests

This paper tests the impact of transactions cost specification on deviations from lower boundary and put-call parity properties. Using PHLX traded foreign exchange options, prices for puts and calls are matched to the nearest five minutes. The results indicate how boundaries on the arbitrage profit function determined by alternative measures of transactions costs can impact the interpretation of deviations from distribution free properties of options such as put-call parity