Globalisation and financial liberalisation has increased the linkages across countries in recent times. The existence of money market links has important implications for both domestic monetary policy and for investment decisions. This study examines the linkages between South Africa’s money market and selected major international money markets. The objectives of the study are firstly to examine the links between the repo rate of South Africa and the central bank rates of the EU, Japan, UK and US. Secondly, is to compare the influence of domestic and foreign monetary policy decisions on South Africa’s money market. The third objective is to examine the long run relationship between the South African money market and the money markets of its major trading partners. Three estimation techniques are used to examine the different links. Principal components analysis, four tests of cointegration, and stationarity tests of the spreads/risk premium between South Africa’s interest rates and the interest rates of the other countries. All three techniques show that there is no long-run link between South Africa’s central bank rates and the central bank rates of the other countries. This shows that the repo rate does not depend on movements in other central bank rates. Domestic money market interest rates respond strongly to changes in the repo rate whilst showing no dependence on central bank rates of the other countries. This confirms the autonomy of the South African Reserve Bank in carrying out policy objectives. When the risk premium is accounted for under the third technique, evidence of integration is found. This indicates that the risk premium plays a crucial part in the level of integration between South Africa and the countries included in the study.

La thèse comporte deux parties. Dans la première partie (Chapitres 1 et 2), un examen des déterminants des interventions officielles sur le marché des changes est proposée. Dans la second partie (Chapitres 3 et 4), c'est la problématique des interventions dites « secrètes » qui est étudiée. <p><p>Chapitre 1: « Talks, financial operations or both »<p><p>Ce chapitre propose une nouvelle approche aux fonctions de réaction permettant d’examiner, dans un même modèle, les déterminants des différents types d’interventions (les interventions effectives et les interventions orales). Le modèle permet de mieux comprendre les choix stratégiques des autorités (opérations financières ou simple politique de communication) et d’en évaluer le degré de substituabilité ou de complémentarité.<p><p>Chapitre 2 :« The institutional organization underlying interventions »<p><p>La structure institutionnelle sous-jacente au processus d’intervention (interactions entre le Ministère des finances et la banque centrale) est explicitement incorporée dans le modèle proposé dans ce chapitre. Cette approche permet d’évaluer, dans quelle mesure, le Ministère des finances (l’autorité responsable de la politique de change), en intervenant sur le marché, internalise les objectifs de la banque centrale(l’agent du Ministère pour l’implémentation des ordres d’intervention).<p><p>Chapitre 3 :« The secrecy puzzle »<p><p>Ce chapitre propose une évaluation empirique des différents arguments théoriques expliquant le recours aux interventions secrètes. Le travail repose sur l’examen économétrique d’une fonction de stratégie, dans laquelle, des déterminants relatifs à la décision d’intervenir secrètement d’une part et, d’autre part, des déterminants relatifs à la détection des interventions par le marché sont incorporés.<p><p>Chapitre 4 :« A unified approach to interventions »<p><p>Un modèle unique, permettant d’expliquer les trois étapes du processus d’intervention, est proposé dans ce chapitre. Ces trois étapes sont relatives (i) au choix d’intervenir, (ii) au choix d’intervenir de façon secrète et (iii) à la perception des interventions par le marché. Grâce à l’inclusion de déterminants spécifiques pour ces différentes étapes, cette approche multidimensionnelle permet d’appréhender leurs interrelations et, donc, de mieux comprendre les différents arbitrages réalisés par les autorités lorsqu’elles décident d’intervenir. / Doctorat en Sciences économiques et de gestion / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

An analysis of the current monetary policy framework in South Africa, which followed the exampie of a number of developed countries by implementing an inflation-targeting regime in 2000, is presented. The primary goal of the framework is to establish price stability, with financial stability a secondary objective. However, as has been evident in other countries, price stability does not guarantee financial stability. Movements in asset prices and the development of asset price bubbles have resulted in a number of episodes of financial instability, which negatively impacted on the growth and development of the countries involved. In addition, the majority of these episodes have occurred in periods of low and stable inflation. The dissertation analyses whether monetary policy would be more efficient if asset price movements were incorporated within the inflation-targeting regime. International experience indicates that early intervention of monetary policy can dampen the negative effects that result when an asset price bubble "bursts". However, if the monetary authorities act too early the effects on the economy can be just as disruptive. The literature is scrutinized to establish what the most effective form of monetary policy should be. The results are then transposed within the South African context to establish how the South African Reserve Bank can best ensure both price and financial stability.

This thesis investigates the relationship between expected inflation and nominal interest rates in South Africa and the extent to which the Fisher effect hypothesis holds. The hypothesis, proposed by Fisher (1930), that the nominal rate of interest should reflect movements in the expected rate of inflation has been the subject of much empirical research in many industrialised countries. This wealth of literature can be attributed to various factors including the pivotal role that the nominal rate of interest and, perhaps more importantly, the real rate of interest plays in the economy. The validity of the Fisher effect also has important implications for monetary policy and needs to be considered by central banks. Few studies have been conducted in South Africa to validate this important hypothesis. The analysis uses the 3-month bankers’ acceptance rate and the 10-year government bond rate to proxy both short- and long-term interest rates. The existence of a long-run unit proportional relationship between nominal interest rates and expected inflation is tested using Johansen’s cointegration test. The data is analysed for the period April 2000 to July 2005 as the research aims to establish whether the Fisher relationship holds within an inflation targeting monetary policy framework. The short-run Fisher effect is not empirically verified. This is due to the effects of the monetary policy transmission mechanism and implies that short-term nominal interest rates are a good indication of the stance of monetary policy. A long-run cointegrating relationship is established between long-term interest rates and expected inflation. The long-run adjustment is less than unity, which can be attributed to the credibility of the inflation-targeting framework.

This work examined the optimality of the inclusion of the exchange rate in the reaction function of the Central Bank in an inflation targeting framework. The study attempts to answer the question whether the exchange rate should have an independent role in an open economy Taylor-type rule. To this end, a Taylor-type rule is incorporating the exchange rate is estimated by the cointegration and vector error correction modeling (VECM) using quarterly data for the period of 1995 to 2009. The empirical studies point out the importance of the exchange rates in explaining and forecasting the behaviour of the South African Reserve Bank monetary policy control variable.