In this paper, the influence of information costs on the integration of Northern European financial markets between ca. 1350 and 1560 is explored. The approach is based on splitting information costs into their constitutive components and on measuring one of these, i.e. the costs of transmitting...

This paper demonstrates effects of economic convergence processes on the foreign exchange behaviour in a monetary modelling approach. Since the exchange rate represents the relative price of two currencies, commonness of stochastic trends between the fundamental determinants of supply and demand...

This paper presents a behavioral finance model of the exchange rate. Agents forecast theexchange rate by means of very simple rules. They can choose between three groups offorecasting rules: fundamentalist, extrapolative and momentum rules. Agents using afundamentalist rule are not able to...

Past empirical research on monetary policy in open economies has found evidence of the ’delayed overshooting’, the ’forward discount’ and the ’exchange rate’ puzzles. We revisit the effects of monetary policy on exchange rates by applying Uhlig’s (2005) identification procedure that...

A core stylized fact of the empirical exchange rate literature is that half-life deviationsof equilibrium real exchange rates from levels implied by Purchasing Power Parity(PPP) are very persistent. Empirical efforts to explain this persistence typicallyproceed along two distinct paths,...

There is a broad consensus that the quality of the political system and its institutionsare fundamental for a country’s prosperity. The paper focuses on political events inItaly over the past 35 years and asks whether the adoption of the euro in 1999 hashelped insulate Italy’s financial...

A striking and unexpected feature of the financial crisis has been the sharpappreciation of the US dollar against virtually all currencies globally. The paper findsthat negative US-specific macroeconomic shocks during the crisis have triggered asignificant strengthening of the US dollar, rather...

We reappraise the relationship between productivity and equilibrium real exchangerates using a panel estimation framework that incorporates a large number ofcountries and importantly, a dataset that allows explicit consideration of the role ofnon-traded, as well as traded, sector productivity...

How is it possible that exchange rates move in the long run towards fundamentals, whileprofessionals form consistently irrational exchange rate expectations? We look at this puzzle from adifferent perspective by analyzing investor sentiment in the US-dollar market. First, long-horizonregressions...

Early warning systems (EWSs) are subject to restrictions that apply to exchangerates in general: fundamentals matter but their influence is small and unstable. Despitethis limitation four major lessons emerge: First, EWSs have robust forecastingpower and thus help policy-makers to prevent...