Nelson C. Mark

Nominal exchange rates and monetary fundamentals Evidence from a small post-Bretton woods panel

We study the long-run relationship between nominal exchange rates and monetary fundamentals in a quarterly panel of 18 countries extending from 1973.1 to 1997.1. Our analysis is centered on two issues. First, we test whether exchange rates are cointegrated with long-run determinants predicted by economic theory. These results generally support the hypothesis of cointegration. The second issue is to re-examine the ability for monetary fundamentals to forecast future exchange rate returns. Panel regression estimates and forecasts confirm that this forecasting power is significant.

Real and nominal exchange rates in the long run: An empirical investigation

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The equity premium and the risk-free rate : Matching the moments

This paper investigates the ability of a representative agent model with time separable utility to explain the mean vector and the covariance matrix of the risk free interest rate and the return to leveraged equity in the stock market. The paper generalizes the standard calibration methodology by accounting for the uncertainty in both the sample moments to be explained and the estimated parameters to which the model is calibrated. We develop a testing framework to evaluate the models ability to match the moments of the data. We study two forms of the model, both of which treat leverage in a manner consistent with the data. In the first, dividends explicitly represent the flow that accrues to the owner of the equity, and they are discounted by the marginal rate of intertemporal substitution defined over consumption. The second form of the model introduces bonds and treats equities as the residual claim to the total endowment stream. We find that the first moments of the data can be matched for a wide range of preference parameter values. But for both models the implied first and second moments taken together are always statistically significantly different from the data at standard levels. This last result contrasts sharply with other recent treatments of leverage in the literature.

The Economic Content of Indicators of Developing Country Creditworthiness

This paper analyzes the economic determinants of developing country creditworthiness indicators for over 60 developing countries for the period from 1980 to 1993. Our results indicate that economic fundamentals--the ratio of nongold foreign exchange reserves to imports, the ratio of the current account balance to GDP, growth, and inflation--explain a large amount of the variation in the credit ratings. All developing country ratings were adversely affected by increases in international interest rates, independent of the domestic economic fundamentals. A countrys regional location and the structure of its exports (such as whether it is primarily an exporter of fuel products or manufactured products) were also important.

On time varying risk premia in the foreign exchange market: An econometric analysis

Abstract A generic intertemporal asset pricing model is applied in an international setting to generate a (possibly time varying) risk premium in the market for forward foreign exchange. The model is fitted and statistical tests of its general specification are performed. These specification tests provide weak evidence against the model.

Some evidence on the international inequality of real interest rates

Abstract This paper undertakes econometric tests of the hypothesis that ex-ante real interest rates are equal across countries with highly integrated capital markets. The issue is of practical importance because the violation of real rate equality is a necessary condition for monetary policy to influence the open economy through the real interest rate channel. Although an empirical literature concerning real rate equality already exists, previous investigators have focused on pre-tax real rates. This paper contributes to the literature by attempting to incorporate the effects of taxation into the analysis.

UNDERSTANDING SPOT AND FORWARD EXCHANGE RATE REGRESSIONS

Using the Kalman filter, we obtain maximum likelihood estimates of a permanent-transitory components model for log spot and forward dollar prices of the pound, the franc, and the yen. This simple parametric model is useful in understanding why the forward rate may be an unbiased predictor of the future spot rate even though an increase in the forward premium predicts a dollar appreciation. Our estimates of the expected excess return on short-term dollar-denominated assets are persistent and reasonable in magnitude. They also exhibit sign fluctuations and negative covariance with the estimated expected depreciation.

Time-varying betas and risk premia in the pricing of forward foreign exchange contracts

Abstract This paper specifies the single-beta capital asset pricing model for the pricing of forward foreign exchange contracts from the point of view of a U.S. investor. Parametric specification of the betas as ARCH-like processes explicitly allows for time variation as well as sign variation of the risk premium in the forward foreign exchange market. I estimate the model jointly for four currencies, using a generalized method of moments procedure. The results show significant time variation for the betas and tests of the overidentifying restrictions are generally favorable to the model.

Real exchange-rate prediction over long horizons

In studying monthly real exchange rates between the US and Britain, Canada, Germany, and Japan from 1961 to 1993, we find that the deviation of the log real exchange rate from its time-varying, long-run equilibrium value contains a statistically significant predictable component at the four-year horizon over a forecast period extending from 1985 to 1993. Fixed-effects regressions employing differentials in productivity, real interest rates, and per capita income display some predictive power but fundamentals based on simple monetary models are generally more accurate and significant. 01997 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

Alternative Long-Horizon Exchange-Rate Predictors

This paper employs quarterly observations on US dollar prices of the pound, Deutschmark, Swiss franc, and yen from 1973,2 to 1994,4 to sort out three broad issues raised by recent work showing that economic fundamentals have predictive power for exchange rates at long horizons. Three alternative fundamentals have been proposed in the literature: those implied by purchasing-power parity, uncovered interest parity, and the flexible-price monetary model. We first ask which of these three alternative fundamentals has the most predictive power. Secondly, we ask if pooling across currencies or if using multivariate statistical techniques improves prediction accuracy over standard regression techniques. Thirdly, we examine whether the conclusions drawn from statistical analyses of in-sample econometric estimates concerning long-horizon convergence of exchange rates and their fundamentals coincide with those implied by analyses of out-of-sample forecasts. The short answers to these questions are; the monetary-model fundamentals, yes, and a qualified no. Copyright @ 1996 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. All rights reserved.