IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aea/aecrev/v96y2006i3p552-576.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Can Information Heterogeneity Explain the Exchange Rate Determination Puzzle?

Author

Listed:
  • Philippe Bacchetta
  • Eric Van Wincoop

Abstract

Empirical evidence shows that most exchange rate volatility at short to medium horizons is related to order flow and not to macroeconomic variables. We introduce symmetric information dispersion about future macroeconomic fundamentals in a dynamic rational expectations model in order to explain these stylized facts. Consistent with the evidence, the model implies that (a) observed fundamentals account for little of exchange rate volatility in the short to medium run, (b) over long horizons, the exchange rate is closely related to observed fundamentals, (c) exchange rate changes are a weak predictor of future fundamentals, and (d) the exchange rate is closely related to order flow. (JEL F3, F4, G0, G1, E0)

Suggested Citation

  • Philippe Bacchetta & Eric Van Wincoop, 2006. "Can Information Heterogeneity Explain the Exchange Rate Determination Puzzle?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(3), pages 552-576, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:aea:aecrev:v:96:y:2006:i:3:p:552-576
    Note: DOI: 10.1257/aer.96.3.552
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/aer.96.3.552
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to AEA members and institutional subscribers.
    ---><---

    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. Martin D.D. Evans & Richard K. Lyons, 2017. "Order Flow and Exchange Rate Dynamics," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Studies in Foreign Exchange Economics, chapter 6, pages 247-290, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    2. Seppo Honkapohja & Kaushik Mitra, 2006. "Learning Stability in Economies with Heterogeneous Agents," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 9(2), pages 284-309, April.
    3. Chionis, Dionysios & MacDonald, Ronald, 2002. "Aggregate and disaggregate measures of the foreign exchange risk premium," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 11(1), pages 57-84, April.
    4. Philippe Bacchetta & Eric Van Wincoop, 2006. "Incomplete information processing: a solution to the forward discount puzzle," Proceedings, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, issue Jun.
    5. Cheung, Yin-Wong & Chinn, Menzie David & Garcia Pascual, Antonio, 2003. "Empirical Exchange Rate Models of the Nineties: Are Any Fit to Survive?," Santa Cruz Department of Economics, Working Paper Series qt12z9x4c5, Department of Economics, UC Santa Cruz.
    6. Gourinchas, P O & Tornell, A, 2004. "Exchange rate puzzles and distorted beliefs," Department of Economics, Working Paper Series qt63m3f61w, Department of Economics, Institute for Business and Economic Research, UC Berkeley.
    7. Gennotte, Gerard & Leland, Hayne, 1990. "Market Liquidity, Hedging, and Crashes," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(5), pages 999-1021, December.
    8. Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas & Hélène Rey, 2007. "International Financial Adjustment," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 115(4), pages 665-703, August.
    9. Charles Engel & Kenneth D. West, 2005. "Exchange Rates and Fundamentals," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 113(3), pages 485-517, June.
    10. Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas & Aaron Tornell, 2000. "Exchange Rate Dynamics, Learning and Misperception," Econometric Society World Congress 2000 Contributed Papers 0795, Econometric Society.
    11. Frankel, Jeffrey A. & Rose, Andrew K., 1995. "Empirical research on nominal exchange rates," Handbook of International Economics, in: G. M. Grossman & K. Rogoff (ed.), Handbook of International Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 33, pages 1689-1729, Elsevier.
    12. Franklin Allen & Stephen Morris & Hyun Song Shin, 2003. "Beauty Contests, Bubbles and Iterated Expectations in Asset Markets," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 1406, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University.
    13. N. Gregory Mankiw & Ricardo Reis, 2002. "Sticky Information versus Sticky Prices: A Proposal to Replace the New Keynesian Phillips Curve," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 117(4), pages 1295-1328.
    14. Sargent, Thomas J., 1991. "Equilibrium with signal extraction from endogenous variables," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 15(2), pages 245-273, April.
    15. Kollmann, Robert, 2003. "Monetary Policy Rules in an Interdependent World," CEPR Discussion Papers 4012, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    16. DeMarzo, Peter & Skiadas, Costis, 1998. "Aggregation, Determinacy, and Informational Efficiency for a Class of Economies with Asymmetric Information," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 80(1), pages 123-152, May.
    17. Martin D.D. Evans & Richard K. Lyons, 2004. "A New Micro Model of Exchange Rate Dynamics," NBER Working Papers 10379, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    18. Elliott, Graham & ITO, TAKATOSHI, 1998. "Heterogeneous Expectations and Tests of Efficiency in the Yen/Dollar Forward Exchange Rate Market," University of California at San Diego, Economics Working Paper Series qt5wm0q8mz, Department of Economics, UC San Diego.
    19. Bacchetta, Philippe & van Wincoop, Eric, 2005. "Rational Inattention: A Solution to the Forward Discount Puzzle," CEPR Discussion Papers 5261, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    20. Michael Woodford, 2001. "Imperfect Common Knowledge and the Effects of Monetary Policy," NBER Working Papers 8673, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    21. Unknown, 2005. "Forward," 2005 Conference: Slovenia in the EU - Challenges for Agriculture, Food Science and Rural Affairs, November 10-11, 2005, Moravske Toplice, Slovenia 183804, Slovenian Association of Agricultural Economists (DAES).
    22. Lucas, Robert Jr., 1972. "Expectations and the neutrality of money," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 4(2), pages 103-124, April.
    23. Bjonnes, Geir Hoidal & Rime, Dagfinn & Solheim, Haakon O.Aa., 2005. "Liquidity provision in the overnight foreign exchange market," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 24(2), pages 175-196, March.
    24. Olivier Jeanne & Andrew K. Rose, 2002. "Noise Trading and Exchange Rate Regimes," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 117(2), pages 537-569.
    25. Rime,D., 2000. "Private or public information in foreign exchange markets? : an empirical analysis," Memorandum 14/2000, Oslo University, Department of Economics.
    26. Elliott, Graham & Ito, Takatoshi, 1999. "Heterogeneous expectations and tests of efficiency in the yen/dollar forward exchange rate market," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(2), pages 435-456, April.
    27. repec:bla:scandj:v:78:y:1976:i:2:p:229-48 is not listed on IDEAS
    28. Grossman, Sanford J & Stiglitz, Joseph E, 1980. "On the Impossibility of Informationally Efficient Markets," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 70(3), pages 393-408, June.
    29. Jesús Crespo‐Cuaresma & Jarko Fidrmuc & Ronald MacDonald, 2005. "The monetary approach to exchange rates in the CEECs," The Economics of Transition, The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, vol. 13(2), pages 395-416, April.
    30. Brennan, Michael J & Cao, H Henry, 1997. "International Portfolio Investment Flows," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 52(5), pages 1851-1880, December.
    31. He, Hua & Wang, Jiang, 1995. "Differential Information and Dynamic Behavior of Stock Trading Volume," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 8(4), pages 919-972.
    32. Martin D. D. Evans & Richard K. Lyons, 2017. "Informational Integration and FX Trading," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: Studies in Foreign Exchange Economics, chapter 7, pages 291-324, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    33. Cheung, Yin-Wong & Chinn, Menzie D. & Pascual, Antonio Garcia, 2005. "Empirical exchange rate models of the nineties: Are any fit to survive?," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 24(7), pages 1150-1175, November.
    34. Harald Hau & William Killeen & Michael Moore, 2002. "How has the euro changed the foreign exchange market? [‘The distribution of realized exchange rate volatility’]," Economic Policy, CEPR, CESifo, Sciences Po;CES;MSH, vol. 17(34), pages 149-192.
    35. Mark, Nelson C & Wu, Yangru, 1998. "Rethinking Deviations from Uncovered Interest Parity: The Role of Covariance Risk and Noise," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 108(451), pages 1686-1706, November.
    36. Spiegel, Matthew & Subrahmanyam, Avanidhar, 1992. "Informed Speculation and Hedging in a Noncompetitive Securities Market," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 5(2), pages 307-329.
    37. Hellwig, Martin F., 1980. "On the aggregation of information in competitive markets," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 22(3), pages 477-498, June.
    38. Kollmann, Robert, 2002. "Monetary policy rules in the open economy: effects on welfare and business cycles," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(5), pages 989-1015, July.
    39. Ito, Takatoshi, 1990. "Foreign Exchange Rate Expectations: Micro Survey Data," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 80(3), pages 434-449, June.
    40. Vives, Xavier, 1995. "Short-Term Investment and the Informational Efficiency of the Market," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 8(1), pages 125-160.
    41. Richard K. Lyons, 2006. "The Microstructure Approach to Exchange Rates," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 026262205x, April.
    42. Wang, Jiang, 1994. "A Model of Competitive Stock Trading Volume," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 102(1), pages 127-168, February.
    43. Jiang Wang, 1993. "A Model of Intertemporal Asset Prices Under Asymmetric Information," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 60(2), pages 249-282.
    44. Philippe Bacchetta & Eric Van Wincoop, 2004. "A Scapegoat Model of Exchange-Rate Fluctuations," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(2), pages 114-118, May.
    45. Stephen Morris & Hyun Song Shin, 2002. "Social Value of Public Information," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(5), pages 1521-1534, December.
    46. 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.
    47. Devereux, Michael B. & Engel, Charles, 2002. "Exchange rate pass-through, exchange rate volatility, and exchange rate disconnect," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(5), pages 913-940, July.
    48. Romer, David, 1993. "Rational Asset-Price Movements without News," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 83(5), pages 1112-1130, December.
    49. Brunnermeier, Markus K., 2001. "Asset Pricing under Asymmetric Information: Bubbles, Crashes, Technical Analysis, and Herding," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198296980.
    50. Philippe Bacchetta & Eric Van Wincoop, 2006. "Can Information Heterogeneity Explain the Exchange Rate Determination Puzzle?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(3), pages 552-576, June.
    51. Joseph G. Pearlman & Thomas J. Sargent, 2005. "Knowing the Forecasts of Others," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 8(2), pages 480-497, April.
    52. Townsend, Robert M, 1983. "Forecasting the Forecasts of Others," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 91(4), pages 546-588, August.
    53. Mark, Nelson C. & Sul, Donggyu, 2001. "Nominal exchange rates and monetary fundamentals: Evidence from a small post-Bretton woods panel," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(1), pages 29-52, February.
    54. Kenneth A. Froot & Tarun Ramadorai, 2002. "Currency Returns, Institutional Investor Flows, and Exchange Rate Fundamentals," NBER Working Papers 9080, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    55. Diamond, Douglas W. & Verrecchia, Robert E., 1981. "Information aggregation in a noisy rational expectations economy," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 9(3), pages 221-235, September.
    56. Meese, Richard A. & Rogoff, Kenneth, 1983. "Empirical exchange rate models of the seventies : Do they fit out of sample?," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 14(1-2), pages 3-24, February.
    57. Hussman, John P., 1992. "Market efficiency and inefficiency in rational expectations equilibria : Dynamic effects of heterogeneous information and noise," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 16(3-4), pages 655-680.
    58. Kenneth Kasa, 2000. "Forecasting the Forecasts of Others in the Frequency Domain," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 3(4), pages 726-756, October.
    59. McCafferty, Stephen & Driskill, Robert, 1980. "Problems of Existence and Uniqueness in Nonlinear Rational Expectations Models," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 48(5), pages 1313-1317, July.
    60. Chinn, Menzie D. & Meese, Richard A., 1995. "Banking on currency forecasts: How predictable is change in money?," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 38(1-2), pages 161-178, February.
    61. Gourinchas, Pierre-Olivier & Tornell, Aaron, 2004. "Exchange rate puzzles and distorted beliefs," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 64(2), pages 303-333, December.
    62. Ronald Macdonald & Mark P. Taylor, 1993. "The Monetary Approach to the Exchange Rate: Rational Expectations, Long-Run Equilibrium, and Forecasting," IMF Staff Papers, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 40(1), pages 89-107, March.
    63. Hau, Harald, 1998. "Competitive Entry and Endogenous Risk in the Foreign Exchange Market," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 11(4), pages 757-787.
    64. Philippe Bacchetta & Eric van Wincoop, 2005. "Can Information Heterogeneity Explain the Exchange Rate Determination?," FAME Research Paper Series rp155, International Center for Financial Asset Management and Engineering.
    65. Richard Meese & Kenneth S. Rogoff, 1981. "Empirical exchange rate models of the seventies: are any fit to survive?," International Finance Discussion Papers 184, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    66. Macdonald, Ronald & Marsh, Ian W., 1996. "Currency forecasters are heterogeneous: confirmation and consequences," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 15(5), pages 665-685, October.
    67. Mark, Nelson C, 1995. "Exchange Rates and Fundamentals: Evidence on Long-Horizon Predictability," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 85(1), pages 201-218, March.
    68. Admati, Anat R, 1985. "A Noisy Rational Expectations Equilibrium for Multi-asset Securities Markets," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 53(3), pages 629-657, May.
    69. Osler, Carol L., 2005. "Stop-loss orders and price cascades in currency markets," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 24(2), pages 219-241, March.
    70. King, Robert G, 1982. "Monetary Policy and the Information Content of Prices," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 90(2), pages 247-279, April.
    71. Franklin Allen & Stephen Morris & Hyun Song Shin, 2006. "Beauty Contests and Iterated Expectations in Asset Markets," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 19(3), pages 719-752.
    72. Foster, F Douglas & Viswanathan, S, 1996. "Strategic Trading When Agents Forecast the Forecasts of Others," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 51(4), pages 1437-1478, September.
    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. Philippe Bacchetta & Eric van Wincoop, 2005. "Can Information Heterogeneity Explain the Exchange Rate Determination?," FAME Research Paper Series rp155, International Center for Financial Asset Management and Engineering.
    2. 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.
    3. F. Pancotto & G. Pignataro & D. Raggi, 2014. "Higher order beliefs and the dynamics of exchange rates," Working Papers wp957, Dipartimento Scienze Economiche, Universita' di Bologna.
    4. Walker, Todd B., 2007. "How equilibrium prices reveal information in a time series model with disparately informed, competitive traders," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 137(1), pages 512-537, November.
    5. Philippe Bacchetta & Eric Van Wincoop, 2008. "Higher Order Expectations in Asset Pricing," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 40(5), pages 837-866, August.
    6. Engel, Charles, 2014. "Exchange Rates and Interest Parity," Handbook of International Economics, in: Gopinath, G. & Helpman, . & Rogoff, K. (ed.), Handbook of International Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 0, pages 453-522, Elsevier.
    7. Menkhoff, Lukas & Rebitzky, Rafael R. & Schröder, Michael, 2009. "Heterogeneity in exchange rate expectations: Evidence on the chartist-fundamentalist approach," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 70(1-2), pages 241-252, May.
    8. Stijn Claessens & M Ayhan Kose, 2018. "Frontiers of macrofinancial linkages," BIS Papers, Bank for International Settlements, number 95.
    9. Francesca Pancotto & Giuseppe Pignataro & Davide Raggi, 2015. "Social Learning and Higher Order Beliefs: A Structural Model of Exchange Rates Dynamics," LEM Papers Series 2015/24, Laboratory of Economics and Management (LEM), Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa, Italy.
    10. Rime, Dagfinn & Sarno, Lucio & Sojli, Elvira, 2010. "Exchange rate forecasting, order flow and macroeconomic information," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 80(1), pages 72-88, January.
    11. Dick, Christian D. & MacDonald, Ronald & Menkhoff, Lukas, 2015. "Exchange rate forecasts and expected fundamentals," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 53(C), pages 235-256.
    12. Makarov, Igor & Rytchkov, Oleg, 2012. "Forecasting the forecasts of others: Implications for asset pricing," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 147(3), pages 941-966.
    13. Stijn Claessens & M Ayhan Kose, 2017. "Asset prices and macroeconomic outcomes: a survey," BIS Working Papers 676, Bank for International Settlements.
    14. Candian, Giacomo, 2019. "Information frictions and real exchange rate dynamics," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 116(C), pages 189-205.
    15. Franklin Allen & Stephen Morris & Hyun Song Shin, 2003. "Beauty Contests, Bubbles and Iterated Expectations in Asset Markets," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 1406, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University.
    16. Philippe Bacchetta & Eric Van Wincoop, 2006. "Incomplete information processing: a solution to the forward discount puzzle," Proceedings, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, issue Jun.
    17. Angeletos, G.-M. & Lian, C., 2016. "Incomplete Information in Macroeconomics," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & Harald Uhlig (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 1065-1240, Elsevier.
    18. Martin D. D. Evans(Georgetown University and NBER) and Richard K. Lyons(U.C. Berkeley and NBER, Haas School of Business), 2005. "A New Micro Model of Exchange Rate Dynamics (March 2004)," Working Papers gueconwpa~05-05-04, Georgetown University, Department of Economics.
    19. Menzies Gordon Douglas & Zizzo Daniel John, 2009. "Inferential Expectations," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 9(1), pages 1-27, December.
    20. George-Marios Angeletos & Chen Lian, 2016. "Incomplete Information in Macroeconomics: Accommodating Frictions in Coordination," NBER Working Papers 22297, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • F31 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - Foreign Exchange
    • D82 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Asymmetric and Private Information; Mechanism Design
    • D84 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Expectations; Speculations

    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:aea:aecrev:v:96:y:2006:i:3:p:552-576. 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: Michael P. Albert (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aeaaaea.html .

    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.