Thesis (M.M. (Finance & Investment))--University of the Witwatersrand, Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management, Graduate School of Business Administration, 2014. / Dornbusch’s exchange rate overshooting hypothesis has guided monetary policy conduct for many years though empirical evidence on its validity is mixed. This study re-examines the validity of the overshooting hypothesis by using the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) procedure. Specifically, the study investigates whether the overshooting hypothesis holds for the United States Dollar/Zambian Kwacha (USD-ZMK) exchange rate. In addition, the study tests if there is a long-run equilibrium relationship between the USD-ZMK exchange rate and the macroeconomic fundamentals (money supply, real Gross Domestic Product (GDP), interest rates and inflation rates). The study uses monthly nominal USD/ZMK exchange rates and monetary fundamentals data from January 2000 to December 2012. The study finds no evidence of exchange rate overshooting. The result also show that there is no long run equilibrium relationship between the exchange rate and the differentials of macroeconomic fundamentals. The implication is that macroeconomic fundamentals are insignificant in determining the exchange rate fluctuations in the long run. This finding is inconsistent with the monetary model of exchange rate determination, which asserts that there is a long-run relationship between the exchange rate and macroeconomic fundamentals.

In this paper, we reconsider the question how monetary policy influences exchange rate dynamics. To this end, a vector autoregressive (VAR) model is combined with a two-country dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) model. Instead of focusing exclusively on how monetary policy shocks affect the level of exchange rates, we also analyze how they impact exchange rate volatility. Since exchange rate volatility is not observed, we estimate it alongside the remaining quantities in the model. Our findings can be summarized as follows. Contractionary monetary policy shocks lead to an appreciation of the home currency, with exchange rate responses in the short-run typically undershooting their long-run level of appreciation. They also lead to an increase in exchange rate volatility. Historical and forecast error variance decompositions indicate that monetary policy shocks explain an appreciable amount of exchange rate movements and the corresponding volatility. / Series: Department of Economics Working Paper Series