In this empirical study, we analyze the relationship between carry trade positions and some key financial as well as macroeconomic variables using a multivariate threshold model. It is often stated that the Swiss franc serves as a funding currency. We therefore focus on carry trades based on the USD/CHF and EUR/CHF currency pairs over the period from 1995 to mid-2008. We conclude that carry trades are driven to a large extent by changes in investors' risk sentiment, movements in stock market prices and exchange rate fluctuations. The adjustments of carry trade positions to unexpected movements in these variables vary between periods of high and low interest-rate differentials (IRD). While a positive shock to the IRD is followed by a rise in carry trade positions during a period of low IRD, it will trigger a decline in these positions during a period of high IRD. These results suggest that the shock to the IRD itself is not enough to compensate investors for the increased foreign exchange risk. Moreover, a positive stock market price shock is associated with a rise in carry trade positions, since investors may use stock portfolios as collateral for liquidity. A sudden unwinding of carry trades leads to significant Swiss franc appreciation. Furthermore, carry trade activities 'Granger-cause' the nominal exchange rate in periods of low IRD. The Granger causality test results further indicate feedback trading.
Some observers argue that increased real integration has led to greater co-movement of prices internationally. We examine the evidence for cross-border price spillovers among economies participating in the pan-Asian cross-border production networks. Starting with country-level data, we find that both producer price and consumer price inflation rates move more closely together between those Asian economies that trade more with one another, ie that share a higher degree of trade intensity. Next, using a novel data set based on the World Input-Output Database (WIOD), we examine the importance of the supply chain for cross-border price spillovers at the sectoral level. We document the increasing importance of imported intermediate inputs for economies in the Asia-Pacific region and examine the impact on domestic producer prices of changes in costs of imported intermediate inputs. Our results suggest that real integration through the supply chain matters for domestic price dynamics in the Asia-Pacific region.
In this working paper, we study the three generic clearing arrangements in the presence of two-sided limited commitment: simple bilateral clearing, segregated collateral clearing through a third party, and - most sophisticated of all - central counterparty (CCP) clearing. Clearing secures the settlement of obligations from over-the-counter (OTC) forward contracts that smooth the income of risk-averse agents. Clearing requires collateral to guarantee settlement; this is costly, as it reduces income from investment. While welfare is greater under more sophisticated clearing arrangements, we find that these are also more demanding in terms of collateral.
The Euro Crisis has stopped the process of the European financial integration and triggered a strong repatriation of debt from foreign to domestic investors. We investigate this empirical pattern in light of competing theories of cross-border portfolio allocation. Three empirical regularities stand out: i) repatriation of debt occurred mainly in crisis countries; ii) repatriation affected mainly public debt; iii) public debt of crisis countries was reallocated to politically influential countries within the Euro Area. Standard theories are in line with pattern (i) at best. We argue that the full picture constitutes evidence for the "secondary market theory" of sovereign debt.
This paper assesses the transmission of monetary policy in a large Bayesian vector autoregression based on the approach proposed by Banbura, Giannone and Reichlin (2010). The paper analyzes the impact of monetary policy shocks in the United States and Canada not only on a range of domestic aggregates, trade flows, and exchange rates, but also foreign investment income. The analysis provides three main results. First, a surprise monetary policy action has a statistically and economically significant impact on both gross and net foreign investment income flows in both countries. Against the background of growing foreign wealth and investment income, this result provides preliminary evidence that foreign balance-sheet channels might play an increasingly important role for monetary transmission. Second, the impact of monetary policy on foreign investment income flows differs considerably across asset categories and over time, suggesting that the investment instruments and the currency denomination of a country's foreign assets and liabilities are potentially relevant for the way in which monetary policy affects the domestic economy. Finally, the results support existing evidence on the effectiveness of large vector autoregressions and the Bayesian shrinkage approach in addressing the curse of dimensionality and eliminating price and exchange rate puzzles.
Based on a vector autoregressive model, this paper shows that time variation in monthly excess returns on Swiss government bonds and stocks is predominantly driven by news of inflation and dividends, respectively. This finding is in marked contrast to US evidence which points to a more prominent role of excess return news in this respect. The bond market findings for both Switzerland and the US are consistent with the view that market participants put more weight on news of macroeconomic, i.e. long-term inflation, risks in periods of exceptionally low real interest rates and in crisis periods than in normal times.
Although the effects of economic news announcements on asset prices are well established, these relationships are unlikely to be stable. This paper documents the time variation in the responses of yield curves and exchange rates using high frequency data from January 2000 through August 2011. Significant time variation in news effects is present for those announcements that have the largest effects on asset prices. The time variation in effects is explained by economic conditions, including the level of policy rates at the time of the release, and risk conditions: government bond yields increase in response to "good news", but less so when risk is elevated. Risk conditions matter since they can capture the effects of uncertainty on the information content of news announcements, the interaction of monetary policy and financial stability objectives of central banks, and the effect of news announcements on the risk premium.
Real-time gross settlement (RTGS) systems effect final settlement of payments continuously and on an individual basis. This generates a trade-off between liquidity needs and settlement delay. Against the background of reconstruction discussions, the paper analyses whether more advanced algorithms reduce liquidity needs and settlement delay if applied to the Swiss Interbank Clearing (SIC) system. Simulations run with the BoF-PSS2 simulator show that expected reductions in liquidity needs and settlement delay are modest and should carefully be evaluated against costs. More advanced settlement algorithms improve settlement efficiency only if payment release behaviour is highly aligned.
Surprisingly little empirical work is available on how individual production sectors respond to macroeconomic shocks. The model developed in this paper quantifies the impact of monetary policy, exchange rates and external demand on the various production sectors of the Swiss economy. Our results show that such shocks are incompletely transmitted and that their effect is heterogeneous across sectors. The information gained through this work is new and a useful contribution for policymakers as it enables them to assess the consequences of their decisions on the various sectors. The analysis is done in the framework of a structural dynamic factor model in order to cope with the large data dimensions. The model is estimated on Swiss data, but because it is carefully specified to capture the macroeconomic dynamics of a large set of variables in a small and open economy, its specification may also serve as a benchmark for other countries with this attribute.
This paper estimates Taylor rules using real-time inflation forecasts of the Swiss National Bank's (SNB) ARIMA model and real-time model-based internal estimates of the output gap since the onset of the monetary policy concept adopted in 2000. To study how market participants understand the SNB's behavior, we compare these Taylor rules to marketexpected rules using Consensus Economics survey-based measures of expectations. In light of the recent financial crisis, the zero-lower bound period and the subsequent massive Swiss franc appreciation, we analyze potential nonlinearity of the rules using a novel semi-parametric approach. First, the results show that the SNB reacts more strongly to its ARIMA inflation forecasts three and four quarters ahead than to forecasts at shorter horizons. Second, market participants have expected a higher inflation responsiveness of the SNB than found with the central bank's data. Third, the best fitting specification includes a reaction to the nominal effective Swiss franc appreciation. Finally, the semiparametric regressions suggest that the central bank reacts to movements in the output gap and the exchange rate to the extent that they become a concern for price stability and economic activity.
