Using transaction-level tick-by-tick data of same- and next-day settlement of the Russian Ruble versus the US Dollar exchange rate (RUB/USD) traded on the Moscow Exchange Market during the period 2005-2013, we analyze the impact of trading hours extensions on volatility. During the sample...

The exchange rate between the Naira and other currencies has continued to witness variability with depreciation. This variability makes it difficult to predict returns. Against this background, this paper examines the naira exchange rate vis-a-vis four other currencies. The impact of exogenous...

Using a recently introduced method to quantify the time varying lead-lag dependencies between pairs of economic time series (the thermal optimal path method), we test two fundamental tenets of the theory of fixed income: (i) the stock market variations and the yield changes should be...

The implementation of economic reforms under new economic policies in India was associated with a paradigmatic shift in monetary and fiscal policy. While monetary policies were solely aimed at "price stability" in the neoliberal regime, fiscal policies were characterized by the objective of...

This paper examines how the Fed's monetary policy decisions affect the implied volatility of the S&P 500 index. The results show that stock market uncertainty is significantly affected by the Fed's policy decisions. In particular, we find that implied volatility generally decreases after FOMC...

Since the dismantling of the Bretton Woods system, gold has delivered average return comparable to the average return delivered by the aggregate US stock market. This suggest that none of the growth and technological improvement gains accrued to the financiers. In the context of modern asset...

The shock waves of the 2008-09 global financial crisis and the 2011-12 Eurozone debt crisis hit emerging markets from the trade, the finance and the expectations channels. We focus on the finance channel in this paper. We first discuss the challenges arising from capital flow volatility in...

By applying readability statistics to the Humphrey-Hawkins testimonies given by the Federal Reserve Chairman, I test whether the clarity of central bank communication affects volatility in financial markets. There are three key results. First, when clarity matters, the results are unequivocal:...

We assess the effects of financial shocks on inflation, and to what extent financial shocks can account for the "missing disinflation" during the Great Recession. We apply a vector autoregressive model to US data and identify financial shocks through sign restrictions. Our main finding is that...