Capital controls, exchange rate volatility and risk premium

Capital controls lower the variability of the exchange rate and reduce the risk premium as well as the domestic interest rate. On the other hand, capital controls reduce the number of noise traders and, therefore, the risk-bearing capacity of the market, leading to higher interest rates and a lower growth potential of the economy. The identification of these two effects which work in opposite directions are the result of a study on the effect of capital controls on the exchange rate, the domestic interest rate, and the microstructure of the foreign exchange market in a small open economy. --Capital Controls,Capital Flows,Risk Premium

What Drives Heterogeneity in Foreign Exchange Rate Expectations: Deep Insights from a New Survey

Foreign exchange rate expectations play a central role in virtually all monetary models for the open economy. Therefore, it is extremely important to gain empirical insights into the expectations formation process. In this paper, we use a unique disaggregated data set to model the expectations of the Yen/USD exchange rate of about 50 leading foreign exchange rate professionals. The survey includes not only forecasts of the exchange rate, but also for macroeconomic fundamentals, like GDP growth, inflation, and interest rates. Different expectations of fundamentals might lead to different views of exchange rate dynamics. Using panel models, we are able to confirm the heterogeneity of exchange rate expectations often detected by former authors. More important, we provide strong evidence regarding the likely source of heterogeneity. In line with forward looking models for the exchange rate, expected fundamentals have a substantial impact on exchange rate expectations, thereby challenging the backward looking evidence of previous studies. However, the heterogeneity in the expectations of macroeconomic fundamentals is not sufficient to explain the heterogeneity in exchange rate expectations.Exchange rate expectations, heterogeneity of expectations, expected fundamentals

Do exchange-rate forecasters herd? A note on the zloty/dollar and yen/dollar exchange rate

We used the foreign-exchange rate forecasts of the Consensus Economics Inc. poll to analyze whether exchange-rate forecasters herd or anti-herd. Forecasters herd (anti-herd) if their forecasts are biased towards (away from) the consensus. Upon implementing a robust empirical test developed by Bernhardt, Campello, Kutsoati (2006), we found that forecasters anti-herd.exchange rates, forecasting, herding

The behaviour of noise traders: empirical evidence on purchases of business magazines

According to the prospect theory financial investors tend to sell winners too early and ride losers too long. Therefore, demand for financial advise should be high in a bull market and low in a bear market. Thus, we test the hypothesis whether the demand for business magazines is somehow related to the performance of the stock market. It turns out that the sales of these magazines are positively correlated with the stock market index. Due to the fact that the information provided in business magazines seem to be already reflected in stock prices, trading on those kind of data will be just like trading on noise. In conclusion, we are able to isolate a major influence factor for the expectation formation process of noise traders. --Noise Trader,Stock Market,Business Magazine,Demand Estimation

Biases in FX-Forecasts: Evidence from Panel Data

In this paper, we use the Wall Street Journal poll of FX forecasts to analyze how the group of forecasters form their expectations. One focus is whether forecasters build rational expectations. Furthermore, we analyze whether the group of forecasters can be regarded as homogeneous or heterogeneous. The results from our regressions strongly suggest that some forecasters combine different models of exchange rate forecasting, while others rely solely on one model. We also find evidence that some forecasters underly a bias, while others do not. Overall, our regression results indicate a high degree of heterogeneity. In conclusion, we show that the expectation formation process is not the same among all economists polled. Our findings carry importance for macroeconomic modelling: The assumption of rational agents forming homogeneous expectations is not supported by our results. --Foreign exchange market,forecast bias,random walk

Scattered Fiscal Forecasts

The banking debacle of 2007/2008 and the Greek sovereign debt crisis have witnessed that forecasts of government balances play a major role for how participants in financial markets assess the sustainability of government budget deficits. But how do forecasters form their government-balance forecasts? Do forecasters deliver unbiased forecasts? Our results imply that they do not. On the contrary, using more than 100,000 forecasts of government balances for 38 countries we report strong evidence of forecaster anti-herding, i.e. forecaster scatter their projections around the consensus forecast.Government balance, Survey data, Forecasting

Are oil-price-forecasters finally right? -- Regressive expectations towards more fundamental values of the oil price

We use oil price forecasts from the Consensus Economic Forecast poll to analyze how forecaster build their expectations. Our findings point into the direction that the extrapolative as well as the regressive expectation formation hypothesis play a role. Standard measures of forecast accuracy reveal forecasters' underperformance relative to the random-walk benchmark. However, it seems that this result might be biased due to peso problems.Oil price, survey data, forecast bias, peso problem

The Effects of Japanese Interventions on FX-Forecast Heterogeneity

This paper investigates the determinants of forecast heterogeneity in the Yen-US dollar market using a panel data set from Consensus Economics. Regardless of the particular model specification and consideration of control variables we find that exchange rate misalignments increase forecast dispersion, while foreign exchange intervention of the Japanese Ministry of Finance dampens expectation heterogeneity.Exchange rates, forecast heterogeneity, survey data

The news model of asset price determination: An empirical examination of the Danish football club Brøndby IF

According to the news model of asset price determination, only the unexpected component of an information should drive the stock price. We use the Danish publicly listed football club Brøndby IF to analyze how match outcome impacts the stock price. To disentangle gross news from net news, betting odd information is used to control for the expected match outcome. --news model,football industry,betting odds,stock market,market efficiency,event study