Spillovers to exchange rates from monetary and macroeconomic communications events

Dr. Enzo Rossi and Vincent Wolff

Issue
2020-18

Pages
24

JEL classification
C22, E58, F31, G14

Keywords
Central bank communication, macroeconomic news, exchange rates, event study

Year
2020

We study the tightness of the link between U.S. monetary and macroeconomic communication events and the exchange rate movements against the USD of four major currencies - the euro, the Swiss franc, the Brazilian real and the Mexican peso - since the global financial crisis (GFC). We find three main results. Approximately 20 percent of the U.S. communications events were associated with statistically significant exchange rate effects. Unconventional and conventional monetary policy announcements had equal impacts. The reactions of the advanced countries' currencies were more in line with each another than with those of the emerging markets' currencies.