The paper develops a theory that endogenizes the currency composition of international nominal bond portfolios in general equilibrium. It emphasizes the critical roles of government debt and of government policies, and thereby reconnects to the partial equilibrium portfolio balance literature of the 1980s. Consistent with recent empirical findings, optimal private sector foreign currency positi...

In this paper, we study predictability of exchange rates and explore determinants of its dynamics over time. We model the admissible amount of predictability in two ways, each corresponding in a stylized manner to a broad class of rational currency pricing models, namely those under which the marginal currency trader can diversify away currency risk and alternative specifications under which th...

This paper investigates the relative role of price discovery between two long-term swap contracts that exchange U.S. dollars for Japanese yen – the cross-currency basis swap and the foreign exchange (FX) swap – using structural state space models. Our main findings are that: (i) the currency swap market plays a much more dominant role in price discovery than the FX swap market; and (ii) FX swap...

This paper constructs a model in which the currency composition of national portfolios is an essential element in facilitating capital ‡ows between countries. In a two country environment, each country chooses optimal nominal bond portfolios in face of real and nominal risk. Current account de…cits are …nanced by increases in domestic currency debt, but balanced by increases in foreign currency...

Different from the conventional methods of probability theory, this paper discusses the currency option pricing problem within the framework of uncertainty theory. Considering the uncertain factors in the financial market, we propose a new uncertain currency model with floating interest rates based on the assumption that the domestic interest rate, the foreign interest rate and the exchange rat...

Why do countries participate in currency unions or unilaterally adopt a foreign currency? I investigate the roles of geography, synchronization of economic shocks, cultural similarity, size, political integration and colonial heritage as determinants of monetary unions. The results motivate a selection model for common currency areas, which I then use to revisit the impact of currency-union mem...