This paper examines a special episode in communication practices of the Swiss National Bank (SNB) when short-term interest rates reached the zero bound. A particular feature of SNB communication policy at the time was to talk openly about alternative policy instruments despite the fact that they...

Survey information on Swiss exporters is used to test the hypothesis that firm-specific factors, in particular firm size, are important determinants of pricing-to-market (PTM). The survey asked exporters whether they set dif- ferent prices across markets and, if so, whether price segmentation...

This paper develops a new methodology to estimate the effect of low-wage import competition on U.S. producer prices. We first document that when low-wage countries grow, their exports to the United States increase most in labor-intensive sectors. Second, we demonstrate that the temporary and...

Does global currency volume increase on days when the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meets? To test the hypothesis of excess currency volume on FOMC days, we use a novel data set from the Continuous Linked Settlement (CLS) Bank. The CLS measure captures roughly half of the global trading...

Do immigrants have a higher demand for large denominated banknotes than natives? This micro study examines whether cash orders for CHF 1,000 notes, a banknote used for storage purposes, is concentrated in Swiss municipalities with a high foreign-to-native ratio. Controlling for a range of...

Newswire reports have become an accepted tool for empirical studies analyzing informational asymmetries in FX markets. This paper tests the accuracy of such reports for Swiss interventions in the foreign exchange market. The evidence finds that the time stamp of the reports does not always lie...

Recent time-series evidence has re-confirmed the forecasting ability of Swiss broad money. The same money demand studies and others, however, find that the income elasticity is greater than one. Such parameter estimates are difficult to reconcile with transactions demand theory. This study...