Why Is It so Difficult to Forecast Exchange Rate Movements?

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Introduction The stability of currency values plays a significant role for economic and financial stability. It is not difficult to see the exchange rate fluctuations are widely regarded as damaging. As the movements of the exchange rate have significant and large effects on the trade balance, resource allocation, domestic prices, interest rate, national income and other key economic variables. Then can exchange rate movements be predicted by these fundamental economic variables? Economists have long taken the view that economic fundamentals determine exchange rates. Nevertheless, in the early 1970s, after the collapse of fixed exchange rate regimes of the Bretton Woods system, excess volatility, nonlinear and disorderly movements in exchange rates became mysteries that traditional exchange rate theory cannot explain. Recent scholar concluded “no definitive evidence that economic variable can forecast exchange rate for currencies of nations with similar inflation rates" which is known as “the disconnect puzzle” from Meese and Rogoff’s studies (1983). Thus, this essay aims to explain why is it apparently so difficult to forecast exchange rate movements, and to provide evidence from the relevant literature and the reference of three popular fundamentals-based models, including Monetary Model and Mundell-Fleming Model. To put it simply, the exchange rate is a price. As with any other market, price is determined by supply and demand. Whenever they are not equivalent, the exchange rate would change. However, the reality comes to be far more complicated. Monetary Model The leading model, Monetary Model links exchange rate movements to the balance of payment, which is used for medium to long term analysis. The following assumptions cons... ... middle of paper ... ...g and, inversely, it is the exchange rate that attains the predictability on these fundamentals. Works Cited Engel, Charles 2000, “Long-Run PPP May Not Hold After All”, Journal of International Economics, Vol. 51, no. 2, pp. 243-73. Frankel, J 1996, 'How Well Do Foreign Exchange Markets Work: Might a Tobin Tax Help?', The Tobin tax: Coping with financial volatility, pp. 41-81, n.p.: New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kilian, L, & Taylor, M 2003, 'Why Is It So Difficult to Beat the Random Walk Forecast of Exchange Rates?', Journal Of International Economics, Vol. 60, no. 1, pp. 85-107. Meese, R, & Rogoff, K 1983, 'Empirical Exchange Rate Models of the Seventies: Do They Fit Out of Sample?', Journal Of International Economics, Vol. 14, no. 1-2, pp. 3-24. Wang, Jing 2008, ‘Why Are Exchange Rates So Difficult To Predict’, Economic Letter, Vol. 3, no. 6.

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