Since the abandonment of the Bretton Woods system of fixed exchange rates in the early 1970s, exchange rates have displayed a surprisingly high degree of time-conditional volatility. This volatility can be explained statistically using autoregressive conditional heteroscedasticity models, but...

This paper examines Japanese foreign exchanges interventions from April 1991 to March 2001 based on newly disclosed official data. All the yen-selling (dollar-purchasing) interventions were carried out when the yen/dollar rate was below 125, while all the yen-purchasing (dollar-selling)...

In this paper we connect the events of the last twelve months, "The Panic of 2008" as it has been called, to the demand for international reserves. In previous work, we have shown that international reserve demand can be rationalized by a central bank's desire to backstop the broad money supply...

This paper analyzes and estimates the reaction function of the Japanese monetary authorities in deciding when to intervene in the foreign exchange (forex) markets, using daily Japanese intervention data from April 1, 1991 to December 31, 2002. This paper is the first in estimating the reaction...

The rapid growth of international reserves---a development concentrated in the emerging markets---remains a puzzle. In this paper we suggest that a model based on financial stability and financial openness goes far toward explaining reserve holdings in the modern era of globalized capital...

Over the last decade, the ownership of the banking sector in Latin America has changed hands from local shareholders to large foreign banks from Spain and the United States. It is also a fact that the foreign exchange market in these countries has been segmented through various kinds of...

I analyze whether countries with flexible exchange rates are able to pursue an independent monetary policy, as suggested by traditional theory. I use data for three Latin American countries with flexible exchange rates, inflation targeting, and capital mobility – Chile, Colombia and Mexico –...

If official interventions convey private information useful for price discovery in foreign-exchange markets, then they should have value as a forecast of near-term exchange-rate movements. Using a set of standard criteria, we show that approximately 60 percent of all U.S. foreign-exchange...

We study the curious patterns of gold holding and trading by central banks during 1979-2010. With the exception of several discrete step adjustments, central banks keep maintaining passive stocks of gold, independently of the patterns of the real price of gold. We also observe the...

Fluctuations in commodity prices are often associated with macroeconomic volatility. But not all nations are created equal in this regard. The macro response to commodity booms and busts depends both on the structural characteristics of the economy and on the policy framework that is in place....