The impact of a political shock on foreign exchange markets in a small and open economy: A dynamic modelling approach

This paper aims to analyse the dynamics of foreign exchange markets in a country facing political uncertainty that prompt capital outflow from the country1. The economic environment under investigation is characterized by dual foreign exchange markets: a formal or official market for foreign exchange with insufficient and volatile foreign exchange flows, and a strong and thriving informal market, with a higher exchange rate2. The findings in the paper indicate a necessary condition for stabilization of the exchange rate system and that is that the return on investment should exceed the depreciation rate of domestic currency in the formal foreign exchange market. This condition implies that the return on investment should at least compensate investors for the opportunity cost of holding domestic money in their private portfolio wealth. Our findings also indicate that stability of the foreign exchange rates is more difficult to achieve under insufficient official reserves as the recovery process from a shock becomes more costly in terms of time period needed for the adjustment process to complete. The dynamic path of the foreign exchange premium shows that under massive capital outflow caused by economic sanctions, the informal market exchange rate overshoots the equilibrium stationary exchange rate, and the size of such overshooting depends on the size of available foreign exchange reserves held by the central bank.

Examining Volatility Spillover Between Foreign Exchange Markets and Stock Markets of Countries such as BRICS Countries

The objective of this article is to examine the volatility spillover effect between the foreign exchange market and the stock market of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS) countries along with Japan as the developed country in the region, affecting the BRICS countries. Generalized Autoregressive Conditionally Heteroscedastic (GARCH) (1,1) method is used to study the volatility between the stock market and the foreign exchange market in selected countries, and asymmetric model, that is, Exponential Generalized Autoregressive Conditional Heteroscedasticity—EGARCH (1,1) is also used to investigate the presence of leverage effects in both stock market and foreign exchange market in selected countries. GARCH findings suggest a two-way volatility spillover between the stock market and foreign exchange markets for India, China and South Africa. In BRICS countries, volatility spillover from the currency market to the stock market is seen as more evident and robust as compared to spillover from the stock market to the currency market. A positive asymmetry in spillover is also observed from the foreign exchange market to the stock market. The findings of the study may provide valuable information to investors for decision-making in international portfolio investment and also for economic policymakers for their financial stability perspective.