This paper studies the impact of political risk on exchange rates. We focus on the Brexit Referendum as it provides a natural experiment where both exchange rate expectations and a time-varying political risk factor can be measured directly. We build a simple portfolio model which predicts that an increase in the Leave probability triggers a depreciation of the British Pound, both on account of exchange rate expectations and of political risk. We estimate the model for multilateral and bilateral British Pound exchange rates. The results confirm the model’s main implications. When we extend the analysis to a portfolio model of multiple currencies, we find that the cross-currencies restrictions implied by the theory are not rejected by our system estimation. Moreover, the joint estimates of the multi-currency model in the presence of time-varying political risk premium are in many cases consistent with the Uncovered Interest Parity

Exchange Rates and Political Uncertainty: The Brexit Case

Paolo Manasse
;
Graziano Moramarco;
2020

Abstract

This paper studies the impact of political risk on exchange rates. We focus on the Brexit Referendum as it provides a natural experiment where both exchange rate expectations and a time-varying political risk factor can be measured directly. We build a simple portfolio model which predicts that an increase in the Leave probability triggers a depreciation of the British Pound, both on account of exchange rate expectations and of political risk. We estimate the model for multilateral and bilateral British Pound exchange rates. The results confirm the model’s main implications. When we extend the analysis to a portfolio model of multiple currencies, we find that the cross-currencies restrictions implied by the theory are not rejected by our system estimation. Moreover, the joint estimates of the multi-currency model in the presence of time-varying political risk premium are in many cases consistent with the Uncovered Interest Parity
2020
57
Paolo Manasse, Graziano Moramarco, Giulio Trigilia
File in questo prodotto:
File Dimensione Formato  
WP1141_DSE.pdf

accesso aperto

Descrizione: Working Paper DSE
Tipo: Versione (PDF) editoriale
Licenza: Licenza per Accesso Aperto. Creative Commons Universal – Donazione al Pubblico Dominio (CC0 1.0)
Dimensione 1.26 MB
Formato Adobe PDF
1.26 MB Adobe PDF Visualizza/Apri

I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.

Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11585/732004
Citazioni
  • ???jsp.display-item.citation.pmc??? ND
  • Scopus ND
  • ???jsp.display-item.citation.isi??? ND
social impact