To counter the sharp appreciation of the Swiss franc that set in in the wake of the European sovereign debt crisis, on September 6, 2011, the Swiss National Bank announced to enforce a minimum EUR/CHF exchange rate of CHF 1.20. We find that the simple, though elegant model for the exchange rate...

Starting from the stylized fact that the Swiss franc is a safe haven currency, this paper focuses on the determinants of the Swiss franc during the lower bound regime from September 2011 to January 2015. We describe the Swiss franc as a function of global market risk fundamentals and find that...

This paper analyzes the effects of changes in the Czech exchange rate mechanism on the volatility of the Czech spot exchange rate. While related studies draw the conclusion that exchange rate volatility decreased after the widening of the imposed fluctuation band, the results derived in the...

Option prices seem to behave in ways inconsistent with the Black-Scholes model. Implied volatility varies with the strike price in a parabolic shape that is often called the volatility 'smile.' My objective in this paper is to identify implied probability distributions that might explain this...

The effectiveness of the foreign exchange market interventions conducted by the Deutsche Bundesbank during the Louvre period to alter either the level or the volatility of the $/DM spot rate is examined. Volatility quotes implicit in foreign currency options are employed to recover the impact of...

Krugman (1991)'s target zone model has become the reference of a large part of this literature. Despite its simplicity and elegance, empirical evidence has been lacking. Deriving from Krugman's model analytical expressions for the conditional volatility and density distribution close to the...