The Effectiveness of Foreign Exchange Intervention in Australia: A Factor Model Approach with GARCH Specifications

This paper analyses the effectiveness of foreign exchange intervention by the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA). Initially, a latent factor model is used to decompose the volatility of exchange rates into three unobserved factors - world, numeraire and idiosyncratic. Subsequently, the impact of foreign exchange rate intervention is examined by further decomposing the numeraire (Australian) factor into an intervention component and an unobserved component. An indirect estimation approach is employed to facilitate the imposition of GARCH structures on some of the unobserved factors. The empirical results suggest that less than three percent of observed exchange rate volatility is explained by RBA intervention.exchange rate, latent factor model, indirect estimation

A Perspective on Modelling the Real Trade Weighted Index Since the Float

exchange rates, cointegration

The Effectiveness of Foreign Exchange Intervention in Australia: A Factor Model Approach with GARCH Specifications. Discussion Paper No 135

This paper analyses the effectiveness of foreign exchange intervention by the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA). Initially, a latent factor model is used to decompose the volatility of exchange rates into three unobserved factors - world, numeraire and idiosyncratic. Subsequently, the impact of foreign exchange rate intervention is examined by further decomposing the numeraire (Australian) factor into an intervention component and an unobserved component. An indirect estimation approach is employed to facilitate the imposition of GARCH structures on some of the unobserved factors. The empirical results suggest that less than three percent of observed exchange rate volatility is explained by RBA intervention

A perspective on modelling the real trade weighted index since the float

Since the deregulation of the Australian dollar market in December 1983, considerable effort has been devoted by the central bank to understanding movements in the value of the currency. As the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) has a pivotal role to play in currency markets, attention has been focussed on the modelling techniques used by the Bank’s researchers in this process. This paper examines the ancestral development of the current model of the Australian Trade Weighted Index (rtwi) used at the RBA, as specified in Beechey et al (2000). Estimates and forecasting evaluations of the various models imply that only the relationships between the rtwi, the terms of trade and interest differentials hold consistently, providing the empirical foundation for the current RBA model