Do Actions Speak Louder than Words? A Foreign Exchange Intervention Analysis

Freddy Pinzon-Puerto and Mauricio Villamizar-Villegas

Borradores de Economia from Banco de la Republica de Colombia

Abstract: We revisit an old question but with a new identification strategy, namely the difference in exchange rate effects between announced (“vocal”) and secret (“dirty”) foreign exchange intervention. Using a Regression Discontinuity Design, we exploit a rule-based intervention mechanism enacted by the Central Bank of Colombia that, under observable and deterministic conditions, triggered either the issuance of FX options or the ability to exercise them. We take the former (issuance) as central bank announcements under a sharp setting, since the rule and information that triggered the issuance of options was public, and we take the latter (exercise) as secret trades under a fuzzy setting, since traders could have chosen (but were not required) to exercise their options in the following days after issuance. Our results indicate that, unconditionally, both announcements and secret trades carry similar effects. However, the effects of announcements are considerably amplified conditional on: (i) higher central bank credibility, (ii) less frequent announcements, and (iii) episodes of higher FX volatility. **** RESUMEN: Revisitamos una antigua pregunta, pero con una nueva estrategia de identificación, concretamente, la diferencia entre los efectos de las intervenciones cambiarias anunciadas (“vocales”) y secretas (“sucias”). Para esto estudiamos un mecanismo de intervención basado en reglas del Banco de la República que, bajo condiciones observables y deterministas, activó la emisión de opciones (call y put) o la capacidad de ejercerlas. Interpretamos la primera (emisión) como anuncios del Banco bajo un diseño de regresión discontinua sharp, ya que la regla y la información cambiaria que la activó eran públicas, e interpretamos los ejercicios de las opciones como operaciones secretas bajo un diseño de regresión discontinua fuzzy, ya que los agentes del mercado podían haber elegido (pero no estaban obligados) a ejercerlas en los días siguientes a su emisión. Nuestros resultados indican que, de forma no condicional, tanto los anuncios como la intervención secreta tienen efectos similares. Sin embargo, el impacto de los anuncios se amplifica cuando se condicionan a: (i) una alta credibilidad del banco central, (ii) anuncios menos frecuentes y (iii) episodios de mayor volatilidad cambiaria.

Keywords: Foreign Exchange Intervention effectiveness; Regression Discontinuity Design; Announced Intervention; Secret Intervention; Intervención cambiaria; Regresión discontinua; Intervención con anuncios; Intervención secreta (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C22 E58 F31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 46
Date: 2023-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ban, nep-cba, nep-ifn and nep-mon
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.32468/be.1223

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:bdr:borrec:1223

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Borradores de Economia from Banco de la Republica de Colombia Cra 7 # 14-78. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Clorith Angélica Bahos Olivera ().