The scapegoat theory of exchange rates: the first tests

Marcel Fratzscher, Lucio Sarno and Gabriele Zinna

No 1418, Working Paper Series from European Central Bank

Abstract: This paper provides an empirical test of the scapegoat theory of exchange rates (Bacchetta and van Wincoop 2004, 2011), as an attempt to evaluate its potential for explaining the poor empirical performance of traditional exchange rate models. This theory suggests that market participants may at times attach significantly more weight to individual economic fundamentals to rationalize the pricing of currencies, which are partly driven by unobservable shocks. Using novel survey data which directly measure foreign exchange scapegoats for 12 currencies and a decade of proprietary data on order flow, we find empirical evidence that strongly supports the empirical implications of the scapegoat theory of exchange rates, with the resulting models explaining a large fraction of the variation and directional changes in exchange rates. The findings have implications for exchange rate modelling, suggesting that a more accurate understanding of exchange rates requires taking into account the role of scapegoat factors and their time-varying nature. JEL Classification: F31, G10

Keywords: economic fundamentals; exchange rates; order flow; Scapegoat; survey data (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-mon
Note: 335955
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (15)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.ecb.europa.eu//pub/pdf/scpwps/ecbwp1418.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: The scapegoat theory of exchange rates: the first tests (2015)
Working Paper: The scapegoat theory of exchange rates: the first tests (2014)
Working Paper: The Scapegoat Theory of Exchange Rates: The First Tests (2013)
Working Paper: The Scapegoat Theory of Exchange Rates: The First Tests (2012)
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:ecb:ecbwps:20121418

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Paper Series from European Central Bank 60640 Frankfurt am Main, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Official Publications ().