Using a novel and comprehensive dataset, we provide the first systematic study of liquidity in the foreign exchange (FX) market. Contrary to common perceptions, we find significant variation in liquidity across exchange rates, substantial costs due to FX illiquidity, and strong commonality in...

We identify local and global factors across international bond markets that are poorly spanned by the traditional level, slope and curvature factors but have strong forecasting power for future bond excess returns. Local and global factors are jointly significant predictors of bond returns,...

We examine time varying integration of developed (DM) and emerging (EM) market government bonds. Although we find an upward trend for most countries and maturity bands, we do observe reversals and negative trends among both DMs and EMs and for some maturities during the financial crisis. We...

We find that the degree and dynamics of sovereign bond market integration across 21 developed and 18 emerging countries is significantly heterogeneous. We show that better spanning can significantly enhance market integration through dissipating local risk premiums. Integration of the sovereign...

The failure of uncovered interest rate parity to explain short-term interest rate movements is well documented. We show that short-term changes in long-term interest rates do help to explain short-term exchange rate movements. The relationship gets stronger over our sample period, as the...

This paper introduces a sparse and stable optimization approach for a multi-currency asset allocation problem. We study the benefits of joint optimization of assets and currencies as opposed to the standard industry practice of managing currency risk via so-called currency overlay strategies. In...

We provide a model-free framework to study the global factor structure of exchange rates. To this end, we propose a new methodology to estimate international stochastic discount factors (SDFs) that jointly price cross-sections of international assets, such as stocks, bonds, and currencies, in...

This paper addresses the question of optimal currency exposure for a risk-and-ambiguity-avers international investor. A robust mean-variance model with smooth ambiguity preferences is used to derive the optimal currency exposure. In the theoretical part, we show that the sample-efficient...

We develop a general equilibrium model with intermediaries at the heart of international financial markets. Global intermediaries bargain with households and extract rents for providing access to foreign claims. The behavior of intermediaries, by tilting state prices, breaks monetary neutrality...

DeMiguel, Garlappi, and Uppal (Review of Financial Studies, 22 (2009), 1915-1953) showed that in the stock market, it is difficult for an optimized portfolio constructed using mean-variance analysis to outperform a simple equally-weighted portfolio because of estimation error. In this paper, we...