Exchange Rates and Monetary Policy Uncertainty

We document that a trading strategy that is short the U.S. dollar and long other currencies exhibits significantly larger excess returns on days with scheduled Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) announcements. We also show that these excess returns (i) are higher for currencies with higher interest rate differentials vis-à-vis the U.S.; (ii) increase with uncertainty about monetary policy; and (iii) intensify when the Federal Reserve adopts a policy of monetary easing. We interpret these excess returns as a compensation for monetary policy uncertainty within a parsimonious model of constrained financiers who intermediate global demand for currencies.

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