Policy Signaling and Foreign Electoral Uncertainty: Implications for Currency Markets

This paper examines the effects of foreign electoral shocks on currency markets. I develop a theory of signaling and uncertainty to explain why elections in countries with close economic ties should affect exchange rates. Methodologically, this paper focuses on several case studies, with the 2016 US election as a central case. I utilize an event analysis framework to measure the impact of the election on the Mexican peso by exploiting the plausible exogeneity of Donald Trump's tweets. I also measure changes in the peso using Trump's predicted chance of winning the election and show that the peso is weakest when Trump has the highest chance of winning the election. In addition, I include a series of robustness checks and analyses of other notable recent cases when electoral uncertainty affected currencies in other countries, including the 2018 Brazilian election. The results quantify the effect of foreign elections on exchange rates, building on the existing literature that focuses on how domestic elections shape currency markets. I conclude with a discussion of the external validity of the phenomenon demonstrated by the cases in the paper, charting future research on the topic and outlining ways to extend the findings.

Simulating international tax designs on sugar-sweetened beverages in Mexico

In response to the high prevalence of overweight and obesity, Mexico implemented a volumetric tax of one Mexican peso (MP) per liter of sugar-sweetened beverage (SSB) in 2014. In contrast to Mexico’s volumetric tax design, the United Kingdom (UK) and South Africa (ZA) implemented SSB taxes based on sugar density. This kind of tax is likely to yield larger health benefits than volumetric taxes by imposing a larger tax burden on high-sugar SSB and/or encouraging reformulation. However, sugar-density taxes might yield lower tax revenues. This study aims to simulate the effect of sugar-density taxes as those in the UK and ZA on SSB purchases (in terms of volume and sugar), SSB prices, and tax revenue in Mexico and compare this effect to its counterpart under the current volumetric SSB tax. Additionally, we simulate the effect of sugar-density taxes under different scenarios of reformulation. We conducted all these simulations based on a structural model of demand and supply using household purchase data for 2012–2015 in urban Mexico. We found that the current volumetric one-MP tax led to an SSB purchase reduction of 19% for both volume and sugar and an SSB price increases by MP $1.24. We simulated similar effects under the UK and ZA sugar-density taxes when these taxes were equivalent to the volumetric one-MP tax, and there was no reformulation. When assuming reformulation, the sugar reduction under the sugar-density taxes was up to twice larger than the volumetric one-MP tax. However, we found that the volumetric one-MP tax yielded the largest tax revenue across all tax designs. From a public health perspective, sugar-density taxes are likely to be more effective in tackling the overweight and obesity prevalence in Mexico; however, tax revenue might be lower under these taxes.

Around-the-Clock USD/MXN Volatility: Macroeconomic Announcement Spillovers and FX Market Intervention Mechanisms

This paper advances the literature on the dynamics of the U.S. Dollar-Mexican Peso (USD/MXN) volatility process by leveraging high-frequency data. First, it documents the factors that characterize the intraday volatility process of the USD/MXN exchange rate at high frequencies based on a sample of five-minute returns from 2008 to 2017. Second, it empirically identifies the effects and the relative impact on the USD/MXN volatility process of various macroeconomic announcements, at different frequencies. The results conclude that the most impactful releases are associated with the monetary policy announcements by the Federal Reserve and Banco de México, together with the publication of some U.S. and China macroeconomic data. Furthermore, the results suggest that the different mechanisms implemented by Mexico's FX Commission have accomplished their objective of stabilizing the volatility of the USD/MXN.

Extreme volatility dependence in exchange rates

This paper aims to analyse asymmetric volatility dependence in the exchange rate between the British Pound, Japanese Yen, Euro, and Mexican Peso compared to the U.S. dollar during different periods of turmoil and calm sub-periods between (1994-2018). GARCH and TARCH models are employed to model conditional

Mexico: COVID-19 – a lethal virus for the Aztec economy or a possibility of generating antibodies to underdevelopment?

The present article is devoted to the analysis of the effects o the COVID-19 pandemic on Mexico’s international relations and the feasible consequences that may be tracked in the short and medium term of Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s presidency. The current president’s rise to power in 2018 meant a paradigm shift in Mexican domestic policy and was perceived by the countries of the region as a possibility for Mexico to resume its multilateral ties with the rest of the Latin American continent. Mexico is immersed in the COVID-19 pandemic after the storm of the migration crisis that unleashed the Central American caravan between 2017 and 2018. Devaluation of Mexican peso and the drop of oil prices are also pre-existing problems that have been undermining development possibilities that Lopez Obrador set forth in his campaign. Despite discouraging forecasts of socioeconomic indicators in the region, the article highlights the possibilities open for Mexico as one of the largest economies on the continent: it may find the way out of the storm, which could become a genesis of modifications towards development. In order to explain Mexican performance in the face of the containment measures of 2020 four axes were chosen: migration; international trade; regional cooperation; foreign policy and Latin American integration. In addressing the aforementioned items, the author conducts an interdisciplinary analysis of the factors that converge harming the economic and social indicators due to the fragility exposed by the global Coronavirus situation. The author also suggests some tools that the country could apply to strengthen its regional positioning.

Analysis on the Possibility of Investment in the Mexican Emerging Market

Emerging markets with high uncertainty and turbulent environments are always hard to predict. Unlike advanced markets that are not easy to be influenced by the external environment, emerging markets are still immature and likely to be easily affected. The Mexican peso crisis in 1994 is an example that inappropriate monetary policy was taken when the entire financial system was weak in Mexico at that time. In the global emerging market, Mexican peso plays a significant role in maintaining the stability of the foreign exchange market. This paper aims to analyze the current situation of Mexican domestic emerging markets from its economy, the monetary policy of the central bank of Mexico, and foreign exchange aspects. The analysis can provide information for potential investors to make a decision before they decide to invest in the Mexican emerging markets.