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This thesis presents an empirical investigation of the behaviour of financial markets and also the relationship on the real economy. The thesis will focus on Ireland, a small open economy with increased dependence on international developments. Two important aspects of the Irish economy, the term structure of interest rates and impact of exchange rate volatility, will be analysed. The motivation for the analysis of the term structure of interest rates in part I is two fold. Central banks can control very short-term interest rates, but of course the real economy will only really be affected by the long-term interest rate. Therefore the transmission mechanism from monetary policy to the real economy will depend on the relationship between short-term interest rates and long-term interest rates, i.e. the term structure of interest rates. The second important issue is that of market efficiency, and whether asset prices and returns are correctly valued by the market. A number of different interest rate maturities will be used to test the Expectations Hypothesis (EH) of term structure. The EH will also be tested assuming constant and time varying term premia. The results give support for the EH, and fmd no evidence of a time varying term premium. Given the recent extraordinary growth in the share of Irish exports in GDP, the impact of exchange rate volatility on Irish exports is analysed in part 2. The moti vation behind part 2 is to test whether the resulting monetary union will lead to a rise in exports, as a result of the end of exchange rate risk. Using the cointegration-ECM methodology I fmd that in the long-run there is no significant effect on Irish exports to the UK, while there is actually a positive impact on exports to European countries (UK included). I tentatively conclude that in the long-run the involvement in a single European currency will have no impact on trade.

O objetivo deste trabalho é identificar padrões nos desvios da Lei do Preço Único. Utilizando dados desagregados nacionais e internacionais do período 1998-2008, aplicaram-se duas metodologias distintas: i) análise de componentes principais; e ii) estimador group mean Fully Modified OLS para painel proposto por Pedroni (2000). A análise de componentes principais facilita a identificação de padrões na variação de uma quantidade grande de dados e, o estimador group mean FMOLS permite estimar a relação de longo prazo existente entre os preços de um mesmo produto, cotados na mesma moeda, praticados em mercados distintos. Os resultados obtidos indicam que o câmbio é o principal responsável pelos desvios da Lei do Preço Único. Ademais, os resultados sugerem a existência de uma relação fraca entre os preços de um mesmo bem, cotados em Reais, mas comercializados nos mercados brasileiro e americano. / The main goal of this essay is to identify patterns in deviation from the law of one price. Using disaggregated data from Brazil and USA for the period 1998-2008, we applied two different methodologies: i) principal component analysis and ii) panel group mean Fully Modified OLS estimator proposed by Pedroni (2000). The principal component analysis facilitates the identification of patterns in the variation of a large amount of data, while the group mean FMOLS estimates the long run relationship between prices of the same good, quoted in the same currency, charged in separated markets. The results indicate that the exchange rate is the main responsible for deviations from the law of one price. Moreover, the results suggest the existence of a weak relationship between the prices of the same good, quoted in Reais, but sold in the Brazilian and American markets.

The scope of the present thesis is four-fold. First, to clarify and explain the means-ends framework and step-by-step analysis of the Austrian school. Second, to apply this framework to the Austrian theory of exchange rates. Third, to link the framework with most of the existing Austrian research related with the exchange rate theory and discuss this research. And fourth, to confront the Austrian economics with two mainstream approaches - Dornbusch?s overshooting model and short-run portfolio balance model. Message springing from this confrontation is twofold. First, the fundamental differences between present-day mainstream methods are envisaged. And second, the fact of possibility of mutual enrichment of both approaches from each other despite of completely different methodological backgrounds is suggested.

Includes bibliographical references / This thesis focuses on the effects and causes of exchange rate volatility in South Africa. These issues are analysed in three stand-alone but related papers. The first paper (Chapter 2) investigates the impact of real exchange rate volatility on employment growth in the manufacturing sector. The study contributes to the literature on the employment effects of exchange rate volatility in emerging markets given limited studies. This is done by using the Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) counteraction approach which is able to estimate an error correction form of the model for the variables under investigation. This enables one to analyse the relationship between exchange rate volatility and employment growth. The advantage of this approach is that it performs better in small samples and works well even when the underlying variables are integrated of different orders. Employing quarterly time series data for the period 1995 . 2010, the analysis shows that real exchange rate volatility has a significant contractionary effect on manufacturing employment growth. The study also provides evidence that exchange rate level, output, wages and interest rates have significant effects on manufacturing employment growth. The results suggest that the government can reduce the adverse effects of exchange rate volatility on manufacturing by adopting macroeconomic policies that minimise exchange rate volatility and policies that promote employment creation, for instance, less restrictive policies given that the results show that an increase in interest rates leads to a decline in employment. Coming up with macroeconomic policies that minimise exchange rate volatility requires the knowledge of the causes of exchange rate volatility. As a result, the second paper (Chapter 3) investigates the determinants of exchange rate volatility in South Africa. Few studies investigate the determinants of rand volatility (Arezki, Dumitrescu, Freytag & Quintyn 2014, Farrell 2001). This study contributes to the literature by finding the sources of rand volatility using output volatility, money supply volatility, foreign reverses volatility, commodity price volatility, openness and a dummy for capital account liberalisation as explanatory variables. This is done using GARCH models for the period 1986- 2013 employing monthly time series data. The advantage of GARCH models is that they are able to model and forecast time-varying variance given that the exchange rate behaves similarly to other asset prices, for example, stock prices. The study tests the hypothesis that economic openness leads to a reduction in exchange rate volatility following Hau's (2002) modifications of the New Open Macroeconomics model of Obstfeld & Rogoff (1995, 1996). South Africa is a good case study following the liberalisation of the capital account in March 1995. The results show that switching to a coating exchange rate regime has a significant positive effect on exchange rate volatility. That is, it increases exchange rate volatility. The results also show that trade openness reduces exchange rate volatility using the bilateral exchange rate. The results also show that output, commodity prices, money supply and foreign reserves volatilities significantly influences exchange rate volatility. The study also shows that real factors (commodity prices, output and openness) have relatively larger effects on exchange rate volatility compared to monetary factors. The third paper (Chapter 4) analyses the short run behaviour of the South African rand using daily data. The study contributes to the literature on the causes of exchange rate movements in several ways. First, it uses an event studies approach a la Campbell, Lo & MacKinlay (1997) to answer two research questions. First, what is the impact of South Africa's monetary policy announcements on the rand? Second, what is the impact of South African political events on the rand? The advantage of event studies is that they are able to quantify systematically the abnormal or unexpected impact of an economic or political event on asset prices like the exchange rate. Second, the study focuses on an emerging market given that most studies have mainly focused on developed economies. Third, few studies that use event studies in South Africa focus on stock market reaction to announcements. The results find 8 out of 12 significant cumulative abnormal returns for monetary policy announcements. This suggests that the rand is not only influenced by demand and supply flows but also by news. The study also finds significant cumulative abnormal returns for all the three exchange rates following the Marikana massacre on 16 August 2012 and the release of Nelson Mandela banknotes on 6 November 2012. The ANC elective conference only has significant cumulative abnormal returns using the Rand/US dollar in 2007 and 2012.

Includes bibliographical references / This thesis addresses exchange rate behaviour in a de-facto partially dollarized economy. Over the past two decades the Tanzanian Shilling has been increasingly displaced by the United States dollar. This change has been prompted by instability of the local currency, and by the practices of foreign firms, which have used a dual pricing system at rates disadvantageous to the local currency. The implications of Tanzania's dollarization are traced through three related investigations: whether theTanzania Shilling to United States Dollar exchange rate overshoots, whether it has impacted the monetary transmission mechanism, and whether dollarization has substantively affected the pattern of Tanzania's foreign trade. The first study uses the Structural Vector Autoregression to test if the overshooting hypothesis holds for the TZS-USD exchange rate.The results suggest that foreign currency deposits are encouraged by the volatility of the exchange rate.In addition it is noted that the exchange rate demonstrates delayed overshooting, while a contractionary monetary policy leads to appreciation in the exchange rate for at least a year before returning to equilibrium. The determinants of the exchange rate in Tanzania are trade openness, real interest differentials, labour productivity and government expenditure. The second study uses a Bayesian Vector Autoregression to investigate the monetary transmission mechanism in the presence of dollarization. The results indicate that positive shocks on the interest rate contract money supply, which leads to lower output growth and inflation, while the exchange rate appreciates. The degree of dollarization also has a negative impact on the monetary supply of the local currency, as the central bank seeks to maintain a relatively constant rate of total money supply. This has the effect of lowering the inflation and interest rates, and is also associated with further depreciation of the exchange rate. The positive shock on the exchange rate (depreciation) is associated with an increase in dollarization.The aggregate demand shock fuels inflation and, in Tanzania's case, it has increased money supply, due to the persistent demand for real monetary balances. The third study uses a Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium to describe the conduct of monetary policy in a small, open, and partially dollarized Tanzanian economy. The structure of the model incorporates the expectations of agents and the dynamic relationships are explained in terms of structural representations that characterize the behaviour of the firm, household and central bank. The parameters in the model are estimated with Bayesian techniques, after it has been applied to Tanzanian data. The effects of individual shocks, including those that may be used to describe the conduct of monetary policy, are then considered. These simulations suggest that despite the existence of partial dollarization in the Tanzanian economy, monetary policy has important, short-term, real effects. The fourth study uses an Autoregressive Distributed Lag approach to investigate the short and long run exchange rate sensitivity of foreign trade. Principal components analysis is also used to reduce the dimension of the dataset. It finds evidence that the depreciation of the Shilling typically has an immediate positive impact on the trade balance, and exchange rate depreciation increases the trade balance in both the short and long run. However, exports show signs that support the J-curve hypothesis, though the associated parameters are not significant. Imports are not reduced by a rise in the Shilling, as traditional theory would suggest. This is ascribed to the country's de-facto partial dollarization. Since over 40 per cent of money supply arecurrently held in dollar denominated accounts, trade is largely immune to domestic currency fluctuations. This study also notesthat the use of foreign currency has tended to rise during periods of substantial economic growth. Although no causality is argued, this does suggest that the parallel use of foreign and domestic currencies is not detrimental to Tanzania's economic growth.

Bibliography: pages 53-56. / The main objective of this paper is to discuss exchange rate policies in Botswana from 1976 to 1994. It is also an attempt to find out how Botswana has responded to exogenous shocks and whether such responses could be used in the future when shocks recur. The paper contends that Botswana's record in responding to shocks has been impressive. This is not to say that previous policy actions in response to shocks would be adequate when shocks occur again. Experience shows that it is difficult to respond to exogenous shocks when they take time to subside.

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In this paper we aim to improve existing empirical exchange rate models by accounting for uncertainty with respect to the underlying structural representation. Within a flexible Bayesian non-linear time series framework, our modeling approach assumes that different regimes are characterized by commonly used structural exchange rate models, with their evolution being driven by a Markov process. We assume a time-varying transition probability matrix with transition probabilities depending on a measure of the monetary policy stance of the central bank at the home and foreign country. We apply this model to a set of eight exchange rates against the US dollar. In a forecasting exercise, we show that model evidence varies over time and a model approach that takes this empirical evidence seriously yields improvements in accuracy of density forecasts for most currency pairs considered. / Series: Department of Economics Working Paper Series

Neste estudo, é testada empiricamente a hipótese de eficiência no mercado a termo de câmbio brasileiro, para o período recente de flutuação cambial. A freqüência dos dados é diária, e as taxas a termo são construídas com base no mercado de swaps. É utilizado um método de estimação semi-paramétrico e estatisticamente robusto no contexto de distribuições com caudas pesadas. Este método ainda permite que se trabalhe com séries não-estacionárias no nível (sem diferenciar) e com observações sobrepostas (quando o prazo do contrato a termo excede o intervalo entre as observações da amostra). A hipótese de eficiência é rejeitada quando se usa o método robusto; por outro lado, um método mais sensível à presença de outliers falha em rejeitar a hipótese. Por fim, são discutidas algumas questões relativas à hipótese de eficiência, com especial ênfase para a questão de se a rejeição da hipótese é devida à presença de um prêmio de risco cambial, da ineficiência de mercado ou de ambos os fatores. Os resultados sugerem que o mercado de câmbio a termo no Brasil não é eficiente. / In this dissertation, the forward exchange market efficiency hypothesis is tested for the recent floating regime in Brazil. We use daily frequency data, with implied forward rates based on the swap market. The statistical approach is a semiparametric procedure which is statistically robust to data distributions with heavy tails and allows for non-stationarity of the data and overlapping observations (when the interval between observations is shorter than the futures maturity). The efficiency hypothesis is rejected when the robust procedure is used; still, a distinct procedure more sensible to the presence of outliers fails to reject the hypothesis. At last, we discuss some issues regarding the efficiency hypothesis, emphasizing the question of whether the rejection of the efficiency hypothesis denounces the presence of a risk premium, of market inefficiency or both. The results suggest the Brazilian forward exchange market is not efficient.