Floating exchange rate

In macroeconomics and economic policy, a floating exchange rate (also known as a fluctuating or flexible exchange rate) is a type of exchange rate regime in which a currency's value is allowed to fluctuate in response to foreign exchange market events. A currency that uses a floating exchange rate is known as a floating currency, in contrast to a fixed currency, the value of which is instead specified in terms of material goods, another currency, or a set of currencies (the idea of the last being to reduce currency fluctuations). In the modern world, most of the world's currencies are floating, and include the most widely traded currencies: the United States dollar, the euro, the pound sterling, the Swiss franc, the Japanese yen, the Indian rupee, and the Australian dollar. However, even with floating currencies, central banks often participate in markets to attempt to influence the value of floating exchange rates. The Canadian dollar has not seen interference by the Canadian natio

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Exchange rate

In finance, an exchange rate is the rate at which one currency will be exchanged for another currency. Currencies are most commonly national currencies, but may be sub-national as in the case of H

Currency

A currency is a standardization of money in any form, in use or circulation as a medium of exchange, for example banknotes and coins. A more general definition is that a currency is a system of money

Foreign exchange market

The foreign exchange market (forex, FX, or currency market) is a global decentralized or over-the-counter (OTC) market for the trading of currencies. This market determines foreign exchange rates fo

FIN-523: Global business environment

This course gives the framework and tools for understanding economic events, taking financial decisions and evaluating investment opportunities in a global economy. It builds up an integrated model of exchange rate and output determination, and explains how monetary and fiscal policies work.

FIN-404: Derivatives

The objective of this course is to provide a detailed coverage of the standard models for the valuation and hedging of derivatives products such as European options, American options, forward contracts, futures contract and exotic options.

FIN-405: Investments

The course covers a wide range of topics in investment analysis

Quantifying the Benefits of Labor Mobility in a Currency Union

Unemployment differentials are bigger in Europe than in the United States. Migration responds to unemployment differentials, though the response is smaller in Europe. Mundell (1961) argued that factor mobility is a precondition for a successful currency union. We use a multi-country DSGE model with cross-border migration and search frictions to quantify the benefits of increased labor mobility in Europe and compare this outcome to a case of fully flexible exchange rates. Labor mobility and flexible exchange rates both work to reduce unemployment and per capita GDP differentials across countries provided that monetary policy is sufficiently responsive to national output.

2018

Liquidity in the Foreign Exchange Market: Measurement, Commonality, and Risk Premiums

Angelo Ranaldo

A daily return reversal measure of liquidity is developed and estimated using a new comprehensive ultra-high frequency data set of foreign exchange rates during the financial crisis period of 2007--2008. The measure captures market participants' perception of periods with high and low liquidity in the expected manner. Tests for commonality in foreign exchange (FX) liquidity show that liquidity co-moves strongly across currencies. Systematic FX liquidity decreases dramatically during the subprime crisis, especially after the default of Lehman Brothers in September 2008. To investigate whether there exists a return premium for illiquidity, a factor model similar to Lustig, Roussanov, and Verdelhan (2009) is augmented by a liquidity risk factor constructed from shocks to systematic liquidity. Empirical results indicate that liquidity risk is a heavily priced state variable important for the determination of FX returns. Previously identified risk factors such as the carry trade and market risk factors are no longer significant once common liquidity risk is incorporated in the asset pricing model. This finding helps to explain deviations from uncovered interest rate parity as classical tests do not include liquidity risk.

2009

Optimal Exchange-Rate Targeting with Large Labor Unions

Vincenzo Cuciniello, Luisa Lambertini

We study whether monetary policy should target the exchange rate in a two-country model with non-atomistic wage setters, non-traded goods and different degrees of exchange- rate pass through. Commitment to an exchange rate target reduces the labor market distortion. Large labor unions anticipate that higher wages depreciate the exchange rate, which triggers an increase in the interest rate and restrain wage demands. However, reduced exchange rate flexibility worsens the distortion stemming from preset pricing. Targeting the nominal exchange rate will be optimal when the labor market distortion is larger than the preset-pricing one. This result arises with cooperation both under producer and local currency pricing, even though the optimal degree of exchange-rate targeting is higher under local currency pricing. In the Nash equilibrium, the terms-of-trade effect raises optimal wage mark-ups thereby reducing the optimal weight on the exchange rate target. The terms-of-trade effect is stronger as openness and substitutability among Home and Foreign goods increase.

Center for Fiscal Policy Working Paper Series2009