Structural Interdependence of Price and Demand in a Model of the Foreign Exchange Market with Heterogeneous Speculators: Evidence from High-frequency Data

Abstract

We assume that the variations of the exchange rate depend on the current net demand of the base currency as a consequence of market making, and that the current net demand of the base currency depends on current and past variations of the exchange rate as a consequence of how future price expectations are formed by bounded rational agents. We achieve identification supposing that the structural shocks of price variations and demand follow a GARCH process. Using high-frequency transaction data of the EUR/USD market in 2016, we show that the simultaneous effects of price on demand and vice-versa are both significant and positive. Our estimates suggest that one important source of heterogeneity in demand might be missing from our model, since the structural errors are negatively correlated.