International Capital Markets and Foreign Exchange Risk ∗

The relation between the volatilities of pricing kernels associated with different currencies and the volatility of the exchange rate between the currencies is derived under the assumption of integrated capital markets, and the volatilities of the pricing kernels are related to the foreign exchange risk premium. Time series of pricing kernel volatilities are estimated from panel data on bond yields for five major currencies using a parsimonious term structure model that allows for time varying pricing kernel volatilities. The resulting estimates are used to test hypotheses about the relation between the volatilities of the pricing kernels in different currencies and the volatility of the exchange rate. As predicted, time variation in foreign exchange risk premia is found to be related to time variation in both the volatility of the pricing kernels and the volatility of exchange rates: the estimated pricing kernel volatilities can account for the forward premium puzzle in an ‘average’ sense across exchange rates. International Capital Markets and Foreign Exchange Risk