Modelling Exchange Rate Volatility Dynamics: Empirical Evidence From South Africa

C. May and Greg Farrell

Studies in Economics and Econometrics, 2018, vol. 42, issue 3, 71-114

Abstract: In this paper, we extend the literature on modelling exchange rate v olatility in South Africa by estimating a range of models, including some that attempt to account for structural breaks and long memory. We examine the key nominal exchange rates of the South African rand and replicate common findings in the literature; particularly that volatility is ‘persistent’. We investigate whether this ‘persistence’ is due to structural breaks or long memory, and the extent of asymmetric responses of the rand to ‘good news’ and ‘bad news’. Our results show that while long memory is evident in the actual processes, a structural break analysis reveals that this feature is partially explained by unaccounted shifts in volatility regime; the most striking finding is the remarkable fall in the estimates of volatility persistence when considerably more structural breaks than those identified in recent studies are detected and integrated into the generalised autoregressive conditional heteroscedasticity (GARCH) framework. Furthermore, the asymmetric GARCH model results provide evidence of leverage effects, indicating that negative shocks imply a higher next period volatility than positive shocks. The empirical results also shed light on the timing and likely triggers of volatility regime switching.

Date: 2018
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/10800379.2018.12097339 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:rseexx:v:42:y:2018:i:3:p:71-114

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/rsee20

DOI: 10.1080/10800379.2018.12097339

Access Statistics for this article

Studies in Economics and Econometrics is currently edited by Willem Bester

More articles in Studies in Economics and Econometrics from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().