IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cpr/ceprdp/737.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Advantage to Hiding One's Hand: Speculation and Central Bank Intervention in the Foreign Exchange Market

Author

Listed:
  • Bhattacharya, Utpal
  • Weller, Paul

Abstract

Using a portfolio balance model of exchange rate determination, this paper develops a theoretical explanation of why central banks do not make precise announcements of their exchange rate targets. In foreign exchange markets, where it is common knowledge that the central bank intervenes to stabilize the spot exchange rate around some target level, foreign exchange traders can exploit this fact to earn speculative profits from the central bank: this may cause the bank's reserves to fall to dangerous levels. We show that if the central bank is imprecise about its exchange rate targeting, it can use this informational advantage not only to reduce its reserve losses, but also to extract all relevant `fundamental' information from the traders. The imprecision, however, cannot be too large. There exist circumstances where the central bank finds it advantageous to reduce the market's ex ante uncertainty about the exchange rate target.

Suggested Citation

  • Bhattacharya, Utpal & Weller, Paul, 1992. "The Advantage to Hiding One's Hand: Speculation and Central Bank Intervention in the Foreign Exchange Market," CEPR Discussion Papers 737, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
  • Handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:737
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.cepr.org/active/publications/discussion_papers/dp.php?dpno=737
    Download Restriction: CEPR Discussion Papers are free to download for our researchers, subscribers and members. If you fall into one of these categories but have trouble downloading our papers, please contact us at subscribers@cepr.org
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Judd, Kenneth L., 1985. "The law of large numbers with a continuum of IID random variables," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 35(1), pages 19-25, February.
    2. Laffont, Jean-Jacques & Maskin, Eric S, 1990. "The Efficient Market Hypothesis and Insider Trading on the Stock Market," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 98(1), pages 70-93, February.
    3. LeBaron, Blake, 1999. "Technical trading rule profitability and foreign exchange intervention," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(1), pages 125-143, October.
    4. Cukierman, Alex & Meltzer, Allan H, 1986. "A Theory of Ambiguity, Credibility, and Inflation under Discretion and Asymmetric Information," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 54(5), pages 1099-1128, September.
    5. Bhattacharya, Utpal & Spiegel, Matthew, 1991. "Insiders, Outsiders, and Market Breakdowns," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 4(2), pages 255-282.
    6. Milgrom, Paul & Stokey, Nancy, 1982. "Information, trade and common knowledge," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 26(1), pages 17-27, February.
    7. Stephen A. Ross, 1977. "The Determination of Financial Structure: The Incentive-Signalling Approach," Bell Journal of Economics, The RAND Corporation, vol. 8(1), pages 23-40, Spring.
    8. Dominguez, Kathryn Mary, 1990. "Market responses to coordinated central bank intervention," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 32(1), pages 121-163, January.
    9. Ausubel, Lawrence M, 1990. "Insider Trading in a Rational Expectations Economy," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(5), pages 1022-1041, December.
    10. Maurice Obstfeld, 1990. "The Effectiveness of Foreign-Exchange Intervention: Recent Experience, 1985- 1988," NBER Chapters, in: International Policy Coordination and Exchange Rate Fluctuations, pages 197-246, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. Grossman, Sanford J, 1976. "On the Efficiency of Competitive Stock Markets Where Trades Have Diverse Information," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 31(2), pages 573-585, May.
    12. Dornbusch, Rudiger, 1976. "Expectations and Exchange Rate Dynamics," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 84(6), pages 1161-1176, December.
    13. Dominguez, Kathryn M & Frankel, Jeffrey A, 1993. "Does Foreign-Exchange Intervention Matter? The Portfolio Effect," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 83(5), pages 1356-1369, December.
    14. Sanford J. Grossman, 1977. "The Existence of Futures Markets, Noisy Rational Expectations and Informational Externalities," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 44(3), pages 431-449.
    15. Kyle, Albert S, 1985. "Continuous Auctions and Insider Trading," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 53(6), pages 1315-1335, November.
    16. Maurice Obstfeld, 1988. "The Effectiveness of Foreign-Exchange Intervention: Recent Experience," NBER Working Papers 2796, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. Stein, Jeremy C, 1989. "Cheap Talk and the Fed: A Theory of Imprecise Policy Announcements," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 79(1), pages 32-42, March.
    18. Donald B. Adams & Dale W. Henderson, 1983. "Definition and measurement of exchange market intervention," Staff Studies 126, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Mark P. Taylor & Lucio Sarno, 2001. "Official Intervention in the Foreign Exchange Market: Is It Effective and, If So, How Does It Work?," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 39(3), pages 839-868, September.
    2. Estrada, Javier, 1994. "Insider trading: regulation, securities markets, and welfare under risk neutrality," UC3M Working papers. Economics 2922, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. Departamento de Economía.
    3. Ledenyov, Dimitri O. & Ledenyov, Viktor O., 2015. "Wave function method to forecast foreign currencies exchange rates at ultra high frequency electronic trading in foreign currencies exchange markets," MPRA Paper 67470, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Ismail Saglam, 2019. "Perverse Effects of Non-sterilized Interventions on Spot Foreign Exchange Rates," South Asian Journal of Macroeconomics and Public Finance, , vol. 8(1), pages 26-56, June.
    5. Vitale, Paolo, 1999. "Sterilised central bank intervention in the foreign exchange market," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(2), pages 245-267, December.
    6. Dow James & Gorton Gary, 1995. "Profitable Informed Trading in a Simple General Equilibrium Model of Asset Pricing," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 67(2), pages 327-369, December.
    7. Saglam, Ismail, 2017. "Non-Sterilized Interventions May Yield Perverse Effects on Spot Foreign Exchange Rates," MPRA Paper 78284, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Agastya, Murali, 2003. "Insider Trading, Informational Effciency and Allocative Effciency," Working Papers 6, University of Sydney, School of Economics.
    9. Popper, Helen & Montgomery, John D., 2001. "Information sharing and central bank intervention in the foreign exchange market," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(2), pages 295-316, December.
    10. Tobias Dieler & Sonny Biswas & Giacomo Calzolari & Fabio Castiglionesi, 2023. "Asset Trade, Real Investment, and a Tilting Financial Transaction Tax," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 69(4), pages 2401-2424, April.
    11. Estrada, Javier, 1995. "Insider trading: Regulation, securities markets, and welfare under risk aversion," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 35(4), pages 421-449.
    12. Jordi Caballe, 1991. "Expectativas racionales, competencia perfecta y comportamiento estratégico en los mercados financieros," Investigaciones Economicas, Fundación SEPI, vol. 15(1), pages 3-34, January.
    13. Estrada, Javier, 1995. "Insider trading: regulation, securities markets, and welfare under risk aversion," UC3M Working papers. Economics 3901, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. Departamento de Economía.
    14. Liu, Jun & Peleg, Ehud & Subrahmanyam, Avanidhar, 2004. "The Value of Private Information," University of California at Los Angeles, Anderson Graduate School of Management qt71t9z3w3, Anderson Graduate School of Management, UCLA.
    15. Lucian Arye Bebchuk & Chaim Fershtman, 1990. "The Effects of Insider Trading on Insiders' Choice Among Risky Investment Projects," Discussion Papers 897, Northwestern University, Center for Mathematical Studies in Economics and Management Science.
    16. Maurice Obstfeld, 1990. "The Effectiveness of Foreign-Exchange Intervention: Recent Experience, 1985- 1988," NBER Chapters, in: International Policy Coordination and Exchange Rate Fluctuations, pages 197-246, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    17. Martin Evans and Richard K. Lyons, 2002. "Are Different-Currency Assets Imperfect Substitutes?," Working Papers gueconwpa~02-02-12, Georgetown University, Department of Economics.
    18. Michael Ostrovsky, 2012. "Information Aggregation in Dynamic Markets With Strategic Traders," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 80(6), pages 2595-2647, November.
    19. Galanis, S. & Ioannou, C. & Kotronis, S., 2019. "Information Aggregation Under Ambiguity: Theory and Experimental Evidence," Working Papers 20/05, Department of Economics, City University London.
    20. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/5221 is not listed on IDEAS
    21. Osler, C. L., 1998. "Short-term speculators and the puzzling behaviour of exchange rates," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 45(1), pages 37-57, June.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Central Bank Intervention; Exchange Rate Target Zones; Speculation;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design
    • D84 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Expectations; Speculations
    • E58 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Central Banks and Their Policies
    • F31 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - Foreign Exchange
    • G15 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - International Financial Markets

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:737. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cepr.org .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.