This final work is aimed at the concept of relationship between exchange rate and interest rate differential. The introductory part briefly describes exchange rate as a macro-economical parameter, which can be seen in many different systems of exchange rate. Next part consists of theoretical principles of uncovered interest parity and the dynamics of this process and also the process of international Fisher effect. In the analysis part the relation between interest rate and exchange rate is explored in various conditions of exchange rate arrangements in the countries of Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Slovakia. The uncovered interest parity is valued by graphic analysis made by calculation of the theoretical rate based on uncovered interest parity and the off-set index rate. International Fisher effect is tested on the graph of change in exchange rate depending on the interest rate differential. The graphic analysis is followed by the analysis of linear regression. Afterwards with the use of VAR model we find not only the dependence of exchange rate on interest rate differential but also whether the interest rate differential is dependent on exchange rate or not.

This thesis focuses on the development of exchange rate policy in the Czech Republic and its effect on the balance of trade. The first part considers the exchange rate and its regimes, balance of trade and factors that determine them. The most of the exchange rate theories is not valid in the Czech Republic, it is caused by the fact that the development of the exchange rate is influenced by all the factors together. In my thesis there I concerned with the exchange rate compensatory mechanism in more detail. The relation between the exchange rate and the balance of trade is in the case of small open economy like the Czech Republic evident, but the exchange rate is not always the determined factor that affects the final height of Czech exports or imports. These facts are confirmed in the second part of this thesis that analyses the development of exchange rate policy in the Czech Republic during the period 1993-2008.

Magister Commercii - MCom / The purpose of this study was to evaluate econometrically the effects of real exchange rate misalignment on South African exports between the period 1994 and 2015 using quarterly time-series data. Cointegration tests were done using the Johansen and Juselius approach. The study examined the effects of real exchange rate misalignment of the rand on South Africa’s exports, namely manufactured goods exports, automotive and chemical exports, mining exports, machinery and transport equipment exports and agricultural exports, on both an aggregate and a sectoral level. The long run impact of real exchange rate misalignment on total exports was found to be negative and significant, implying that real exchange rate misalignment negatively affects exports. In the short run, misalignment of the currency was found to enhance export growth and is not sustainable in the long run. On the sectoral level, the study found that in the long run exports are influenced by real exchange rate misalignment with varying sensitivity. Manufactured goods exports, automotive and chemical exports and machinery and transport equipment exports are all negatively affected by real exchange rate misalignment. On the contrary, mining exports and agricultural exports are positively affected by real exchange rate misalignment. Therefore, if an export-led growth path is envisaged for the South African economy, it is important for monetary and fiscal policy to be conducted in such a manner that ensures stability in the real exchange rate at an appropriate level. This will ultimately aid export competitiveness for South Africa. Based on the findings of this study, the researcher recommends that misalignment of the currency should be avoided at all costs.

Masters of Commerce / The purpose of this study was to evaluate econometrically the effects of real exchange rate misalignment on South African exports between the period 1994 and 2015 using quarterly time-series data. Cointegration tests were done using the Johansen and Juselius approach. The study examined the effects of real exchange rate misalignment of the rand on South Africa’s exports, namely manufactured goods exports, automotive and chemical exports, mining exports, machinery and transport equipment exports and agricultural exports, on both an aggregate and a sectoral level.

Master´s thesis deals with possibilities of exchange rates risk reduction in the company FLÍDR, s.r.o. Exchange rate volatility has begun to be a serious problem of many business entities. Unfortunately, the Czech Republic will not join Economic and Monetary Union of the European Union for longer time. The outcome of Master´s thesis is the suggestion of utilization of financial derivatives and proposal of new financial derivatives. Proposed financial derivatives are composed to minimize exchange rate risk in the company FLÍDR, s.r.o., and to minimize losses caused by exchange rate volatility of Euro currency.

This thesis consists of five separate papers, broadly within the field of International Finance. The first paper, An Empirical Analysis of the Currency Denomination in International Trade, investigates the choice of currency in international trade transactions by Swedish exporting firms. It uses an extensive dataset on payment transactions between foreign importers and Swedish exporting firms. It is the first paper to examine currency invoicing at such a disaggregated level. The main findings are that high exchange rate volatility reduces the likelihood of using the importers currency while high GDP and GDP per capita in the importing country increases the likelihood. A large market share of a third country increases the likelihood of using the third country's currency. A further finding is a decreased use of Swedish krona and a rise in the use of the euro as a vehicle currency. State Dependent Pricing, Invoicing Currency and Exchange Rate Pass-Through, written jointly with Martin Flodén, analyzes exchange rate pass-through in a dynamic model with menu costs. In the paper, we provide a link between the fixed and flexible price analyses by specifying a dynamic framework with exogenous choice of exporting currency, but with endogenous pricing decisions. We consider the pricing strategies of firms that produce in a home country, sell on a foreign market, and can change the price in response to exchange rate fluctuations, while being subject to menu costs. Our main finding is that when the exporter prefers to set price in the importer’s currency, the exporter also changes prices less frequently than if price was set in the exporter’s home currency. The intuition is that in this setting, the optimal currency choice is the one that on average minimizes the difference between fixed and flexible price profits, and thereby the frequency of price updates. When the importer’s currency is preferred it leads to limited pass-through and a low correlation between exchange rate movements and import prices. The third paper, Demand and Distance: Evidence of Cross Border Shopping , written jointly with Marcus Asplund and Richard Friberg, uses data from 287 Swedish municipalities to estimate how responsive alcohol sales are to foreign prices, and relate the sensitivity to the location's distance to the border. Typical results suggest that the elasticity with respect to the foreign price is around 0.4 in the border region; moving 200 (400) kilometers inland reduces it to 0.2 (0.1).  For example, a 10 percent reduction in the Danish price of spirits causes a fall in per capita sales of roughly 4 percent at the border (Malmö). This large cross price elasticity is almost half the own price elasticity. The effect diminishes gradually as one moves further from the border, but fall in sales is estimated to drop below 1 percent only at 460 kilometer from the border. Not until we reach 1000 kilometers can we reject that the effect is zero. Common Currencies and Equity Prices: Evidence from a Political Event, uses a political event, the Swedish referendum on whether or not to join the European Monetary Union (EMU), as a natural experiment to examine the relationship between common currencies and the market value of exporting firms. If Sweden would have voted to join the EMU, exchange rate uncertainty as well as transaction costs would have been greatly reduced for many exporting companies. Prior to the referendum, these potential gains (adjusted for the probability of joining) should have been included in equity prices. The day after the referendum that probability of was zero and one would expect a decline in equity prices of exporting firms. We find evidence of statistically significant negative abnormal returns on the trading day after the election for only two out of fifteen examined industry indices. The small effects found in this study are in line with earlier research that finds a weak relationship between exchange rates and equity prices. The fifth paper, When is a Lower Exchange Rate Pass-Through Associated with Greater Exchange Rate Exposure?, written jointly with Martin Flodén and Witness Simbanegavi, we study the relationship between exchange rate pass-through and exchange rate exposure (the relation between profits and exchange rates) under flexible prices. We introduce a convex cost function and study the effects of changing the elasticity of costs with respect to output. We do this both in a model of monopolistic competition as well as in the oligopoly models used by Bodnar et al (2002). We find that increasing the convexity of costs reduces both exchange rate pass-through and exposure, both under monopolistic competition and in duopoly settings. The conclusion is thus that if industries differ mainly on the supply side, this would imply a positive correlation between pass-through and exposure. However, our extension does not affect the result in Bodnar et al. that exchange rate pass-through and exposure should be negatively correlated across industries if industries differ mainly on the demand side, more specifically in the substitutability between domestically produced and imported goods. / <p>Diss. (sammanfattning) Stockholm : Handelshögskolan, 2006, S. 3-12: sammanfattning, s. 15-120: 5 uppsatser</p>

A presente dissertação de conclusão de mestrado tem por objetivo contribuir com a literatura existente que versa acerca da estimação da Taxa de Câmbio Real (RER) através de fundamentos econômicos. O objetivo deste trabalho é utilizar o instrumental teórico de modelos com mudança de regime (Markov Switching) aplicado sobre os fundamentos que determinam a RER em um modelo de Cointegração. O modelo teórico utilizado para a estimação foi o proposto por Montiel (1999), modelo este que é mais indicado para países em desenvolvimento, para o período de 1994 até 2005. Os resultados obtidos na estimação da Taxa de Câmbio Real foram contundentes em demonstrar que havia três regimes distintos (definidos como sendo regimes de estabilidade, transição e risco extremo) na determinação da RER, indicando que havia uma relação não linear entre está última e os fundamentos econômicos. Verificou-se ainda que a magnitude e os sinais dos parâmetros dos fundamentos estimados para cada regime distinto eram diferentes, sugerindo que a RER reagia de maneira distinta a choques nos fundamentos econômicos de acordo com o regime que a economia se encontrava. Os coeficientes obtidos nas estimações foram utilizados para estimar uma Taxa de Câmbio de Equilíbrio, sendo possível identificar os desvios (misalignments) da taxa observa com relação à taxa estimada a parti r de 1994. / The present dissertation aims to contribute with the studies over Real Exchange Rate in Brazil and the impact of the economic fundamentals on its determination. The main purpose of the dissertation is to use the Markov Switching framework over the fundamentals in the estimation of the Real exchange Rate to the period between 1994 and 2005, using a model based on Montiel (1999), which is more appropriate to developing countries. The results show strong evidences that there are different regimes (interpreted as stability, transition and extremely risk), which can be understood as a non linear relationship between the Real Exchange Rate and the fundamentals. In other words, it was possible to show that the impact of the fundamentals over the Real Exchange Rate is submitted to three different regimes, where the magnitude and signal of their coefficients are different in each regime. The parameters of the model were used to estimate an Equilibrium Real Exchange Rate, which was possible to demonstrate the misalignments after 1994.

A presente dissertação de conclusão de mestrado tem por objetivo contribuir com a literatura existente que versa acerca da estimação da Taxa de Câmbio Real (RER) através de fundamentos econômicos. O objetivo deste trabalho é utilizar o instrumental teórico de modelos com mudança de regime (Markov Switching) aplicado sobre os fundamentos que determinam a RER em um modelo de Cointegração. O modelo teórico utilizado para a estimação foi o proposto por Montiel (1999), modelo este que é mais indicado para países em desenvolvimento, para o período de 1994 até 2005. Os resultados obtidos na estimação da Taxa de Câmbio Real foram contundentes em demonstrar que havia três regimes distintos (definidos como sendo regimes de estabilidade, transição e risco extremo) na determinação da RER, indicando que havia uma relação não linear entre está última e os fundamentos econômicos. Verificou-se ainda que a magnitude e os sinais dos parâmetros dos fundamentos estimados para cada regime distinto eram diferentes, sugerindo que a RER reagia de maneira distinta a choques nos fundamentos econômicos de acordo com o regime que a economia se encontrava. Os coeficientes obtidos nas estimações foram utilizados para estimar uma Taxa de Câmbio de Equilíbrio, sendo possível identificar os desvios (misalignments) da taxa observa com relação à taxa estimada a parti r de 1994. / The present dissertation aims to contribute with the studies over Real Exchange Rate in Brazil and the impact of the economic fundamentals on its determination. The main purpose of the dissertation is to use the Markov Switching framework over the fundamentals in the estimation of the Real exchange Rate to the period between 1994 and 2005, using a model based on Montiel (1999), which is more appropriate to developing countries. The results show strong evidences that there are different regimes (interpreted as stability, transition and extremely risk), which can be understood as a non linear relationship between the Real Exchange Rate and the fundamentals. In other words, it was possible to show that the impact of the fundamentals over the Real Exchange Rate is submitted to three different regimes, where the magnitude and signal of their coefficients are different in each regime. The parameters of the model were used to estimate an Equilibrium Real Exchange Rate, which was possible to demonstrate the misalignments after 1994.

A presente dissertação de conclusão de mestrado tem por objetivo contribuir com a literatura existente que versa acerca da estimação da Taxa de Câmbio Real (RER) através de fundamentos econômicos. O objetivo deste trabalho é utilizar o instrumental teórico de modelos com mudança de regime (Markov Switching) aplicado sobre os fundamentos que determinam a RER em um modelo de Cointegração. O modelo teórico utilizado para a estimação foi o proposto por Montiel (1999), modelo este que é mais indicado para países em desenvolvimento, para o período de 1994 até 2005. Os resultados obtidos na estimação da Taxa de Câmbio Real foram contundentes em demonstrar que havia três regimes distintos (definidos como sendo regimes de estabilidade, transição e risco extremo) na determinação da RER, indicando que havia uma relação não linear entre está última e os fundamentos econômicos. Verificou-se ainda que a magnitude e os sinais dos parâmetros dos fundamentos estimados para cada regime distinto eram diferentes, sugerindo que a RER reagia de maneira distinta a choques nos fundamentos econômicos de acordo com o regime que a economia se encontrava. Os coeficientes obtidos nas estimações foram utilizados para estimar uma Taxa de Câmbio de Equilíbrio, sendo possível identificar os desvios (misalignments) da taxa observa com relação à taxa estimada a parti r de 1994. / The present dissertation aims to contribute with the studies over Real Exchange Rate in Brazil and the impact of the economic fundamentals on its determination. The main purpose of the dissertation is to use the Markov Switching framework over the fundamentals in the estimation of the Real exchange Rate to the period between 1994 and 2005, using a model based on Montiel (1999), which is more appropriate to developing countries. The results show strong evidences that there are different regimes (interpreted as stability, transition and extremely risk), which can be understood as a non linear relationship between the Real Exchange Rate and the fundamentals. In other words, it was possible to show that the impact of the fundamentals over the Real Exchange Rate is submitted to three different regimes, where the magnitude and signal of their coefficients are different in each regime. The parameters of the model were used to estimate an Equilibrium Real Exchange Rate, which was possible to demonstrate the misalignments after 1994.

This diploma thesis evaluates out-of-sample predictive ability of exchange rate models. The first part of the thesis summarizes existing empirical findings about exchange rate predictability and describes exchange rate models chosen to be evaluated. The second part of the thesis evaluates predictive ability of purchasing power parity, uncovered interest parity, monetary model and Taylor rule model. The exchange rate models are evaluated on CZK/EUR and CZK/USD currency pairs. The analysis is made using quarterly data from 1999 to 2013, while 2009 to 2013 period is reserved for forecast evaluation. The predictive ability of exchange rate models is evaluated in one quarter, one year and three years horizons. The exchange rate models are specified in first differences and estimated by ordinary least squares method. The forecasts are made using rolling regression. The exchange rate models are evaluated using RMSE, Theil's U, CW test and direction of change criterion. The diploma thesis concludes with description of own empirical findings.