{"title":"International currency markets and the COVID‐19 pandemic","authors":"Hsuan Fu, Jui‐Chung Yang","doi":"10.1111/1468-0106.12409","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Abstract We find that quantifying COVID‐19 pandemic shocks is critical to understanding international currency market returns. Scaled by population, shocks from between‐country differences in the number of weekly COVID‐19 deaths are informative in predicting exchange rate returns. Following Alfaro et al. (2020), we estimate the expected number of COVID‐19 deaths based on an exponential model and use it to construct two pandemic shocks that measure the unanticipated number of deaths on a weekly basis and the time‐varying correction of forecast provided new information from the previous week. We document negative impacts of COVID‐19 propagation on currency returns. In addition, we find that the government response, in particular fiscal and monetary stimulus packages, can help mitigate negative effects of COVID‐19 on currency returns. Our findings are robust to country‐specific pandemic measures, window sizes of the exponential model, and the choice of forecast model.","PeriodicalId":46516,"journal":{"name":"Pacific Economic Review","volume":"27 1","pages":"400 - 422"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1000,"publicationDate":"2022-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"1","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Pacific Economic Review","FirstCategoryId":"96","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-0106.12409","RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q3","JCRName":"ECONOMICS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 1
Abstract
Abstract We find that quantifying COVID‐19 pandemic shocks is critical to understanding international currency market returns. Scaled by population, shocks from between‐country differences in the number of weekly COVID‐19 deaths are informative in predicting exchange rate returns. Following Alfaro et al. (2020), we estimate the expected number of COVID‐19 deaths based on an exponential model and use it to construct two pandemic shocks that measure the unanticipated number of deaths on a weekly basis and the time‐varying correction of forecast provided new information from the previous week. We document negative impacts of COVID‐19 propagation on currency returns. In addition, we find that the government response, in particular fiscal and monetary stimulus packages, can help mitigate negative effects of COVID‐19 on currency returns. Our findings are robust to country‐specific pandemic measures, window sizes of the exponential model, and the choice of forecast model.
期刊介绍:
The Pacific Economic Review (PER) publishes high-quality articles in all areas of economics, both the theoretical and empirical, and welcomes in particular analyses of economic issues in the Asia-Pacific area. Published five times a year from 2007, the journal is of interest to academic, government and corporate economists. The Pacific Economic Review is the official publication of the Hong Kong Economic Association and has a strong editorial team and international board of editors. As a highly acclaimed journal, the Pacific Economic Review is a source of valuable information and insight. Contributors include Nobel Laureates and leading scholars from all over the world.