nep-ifn New Economics Papers
on International Finance
Issue of 2020‒01‒13
two papers chosen by
Vimal Balasubramaniam
University of Oxford

  1. The currency composition of foreign exchange reserves By Hiro Ito; Robert N McCauley
  2. Hedger of Last Resort: Evidence from Brazilian FX Interventions, Local Credit and Global Financial Cycles By Rodrigo Barbone Gonzalez; Dmitry Khametshin; RJose-Luis Peydro; Andrea Polo

  1. By: Hiro Ito; Robert N McCauley
    Abstract: This paper analyses the factors that govern the choice of the currency composition of official foreign exchange reserves. First, we introduce a new panel dataset on the key currencies in foreign exchange reserves of about 60 economies in the 1999-2017 period. Second, we show that the currency composition of reserves relates strongly to the co-movement of the domestic currency with key currencies and the currency invoicing of trade. These factors represent attributes of the dollar or the euro rather than of the United States or the euro area. They exert about equal effects on the currency composition of foreign exchange reserves. We demonstrate that these findings are robust to a host of other possible factors.
    Keywords: foreign exchange reserves, international currency, key currency, currency zones, invoicing of trade, currency of international debt, foreign exchange reserve management
    JEL: E44 E58 F14 F31
    Date: 2019–12
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bis:biswps:828&r=all
  2. By: Rodrigo Barbone Gonzalez; Dmitry Khametshin; RJose-Luis Peydro; Andrea Polo
    Abstract: Bail-in regulation is a centrepiece of the post-crisis overhaul of bank resolution. It requires major banks to maintain a sufficient amount of "bail-in debt" that can absorb losses during resolution. If resolution regimes are credible, investors in bail-in debt should have a strong incentive to monitor banks and price bail-in risk. We study the pricing of senior bail-in bonds to evaluate whether this is the case. We identify the bail-in risk premium by matching these bonds with comparable senior bonds that are issued by the same banking group but are not subject to bail-in risk. The premium is higher for riskier issuers, consistent with the notion that bond investors exert market discipline on banks. Yet the premium varies pro-cyclically: a decline in marketwide credit risk lowers the bail-in risk premium for all banks, with the compression much stronger for riskier issuers. Banks, in turn, time their bail-in bond issuance to take advantage of periods of low premia.
    Keywords: foreign exchange, monetary policy, central bank, bank credit, hedging
    JEL: E5 F3 G01 G21 G28
    Date: 2019–12
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:bis:biswps:832&r=all

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