Carry trades and commodity price risk in production economies

This thesis contributes to three major fields in the international finance literature: forward premium anomaly, monetary policy and exchange rate determination, and measuring monetary policy expectations from asset prices. In the first chapter, I develop a production-based asset pricing model predicting that excess returns of currency carry trade compensate investors for the commodity price risk. Commodity producers differ in their exposure to the export price risk. Exchange rate-commodity price covariance, procyclical interest rates, negative price of exchange rate volatility, and countercyclical currency risk premium arise endogenously. Empirically, risk factors implied by the model explain up to 55% of time-series variation in carry trade returns across developed countries, and generate substantial risk- and transaction costs-adjusted returns as tradable strategies.