IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jimfin/v148y2024ics0261560624001475.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Do FX interventions lead to higher FX debt? Evidence from firm-level data

Author

Listed:
  • Kim, Minsuk
  • Mano, Rui C.
  • Mrkaic, Mico

Abstract

Central banks often buy or sell reserves—so called FX interventions (FXIs)—to dampen sharp exchange rate movements caused by volatile capital flows. At the same time, these interventions may entail unintended side effects. In this paper, we investigate whether FXIs incentivize firms to take on more unhedged FX debt, thereby increasing medium-term corporate vulnerabilities. Using a novel dataset with close to 5,000 nonfinancial firms across 19 emerging markets covering 2002–2017, we find that the firm-level share of FX debt rises following intensive use of FXIs, particularly for non-exporting firms in shallow financial markets with no FX debt to begin with. The magnitude of this effect is economically significant, with one standard deviation increase in the intensity of FXI leading to an average 2 percentage points increase in the FX debt share. For reference, the median share of FX debt in the sample is zero.

Suggested Citation

  • Kim, Minsuk & Mano, Rui C. & Mrkaic, Mico, 2024. "Do FX interventions lead to higher FX debt? Evidence from firm-level data," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 148(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jimfin:v:148:y:2024:i:c:s0261560624001475
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jimonfin.2024.103160
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0261560624001475
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jimonfin.2024.103160?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    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:

    More about this item

    Keywords

    FX intervention; Corporate balance sheet vulnerabilities; Financial development;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F31 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - Foreign Exchange
    • F34 - International Economics - - International Finance - - - International Lending and Debt Problems
    • G11 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Portfolio Choice; Investment Decisions
    • O16 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Financial Markets; Saving and Capital Investment; Corporate Finance and Governance

    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:eee:jimfin:v:148:y:2024:i:c:s0261560624001475. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/30443 .

    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.