This paper examines foreign exchange intervention based on novel daily data covering 33 countries from 1995 to 2011. We find that intervention is widely used and an effective policy tool, with a success rate in excess of 80 percent under some criteria. The policy works well in terms of smoothing the path of exchange rates, and in stabilizing the exchange rate in countries with narrow band regimes. Moving the level of the exchange rate in flexible regimes requires that some conditions are met, including the use of large volumes and that intervention is made public and supported via communication.

The accumulation of large foreign asset positions by many central banks through sustained foreign exchange (FX) intervention has raised questions about its associated fiscal costs. This paper clarifies conceptual issues regarding how to measure these costs both from an ex-post and an ex-ante (relevant for decision making) perspective, and estimates both marginal and total costs for 73 countries over the period 2002-13. We find ex-ante marginal costs for the median emerging market economy (EME) in the inter-quartile range of 2-5.5 percent per year; while ex-ante total costs (of sustaining FX positions) in the range of 0.2-0.7 percent of GDP per year for light interveners and 0.3-1.2 percent of GDP per year for heavy interveners. These estimates indicate that fiscal costs of sustained FX intervention (via expanding central bank balance sheets) are not negligible.

This paper presents a rule for foreign exchange interventions (FXI), designed to preserve financial stability in floating exchange rate arrangements. The FXI rule addresses a market failure: the absence of hedging solution for tail exchange rate risk in the market (i.e. high volatility). Market impairment or overshoot of exchange rate between two equilibria could generate high volatility and threaten financial stability due to unhedged exposure to exchange rate risk in the economy. The rule uses the concept of Value at Risk (VaR) to define FXI triggers. While it provides to the market a hedge against tail risk, the rule allows the exchange rate to smoothly adjust to new equilibria. In addition, the rule is budget neutral over the medium term, encourages a prudent risk management in the market, and is more resilient to speculative attacks than other rules, such as fixed-volatility rules. The empirical methodology is backtested on Banco Mexico’s FXIs data between 2008 and 2016.

We test the effectiveness of the interventions performed by the Czech National Bank in the EUR/CZK within the framework of the Evans-Lyons (JME, 2002) microstructure model of the forex market. Employing time-stamped quotes and transactions on the Reuters Spot Matching market, we estimate a two-equation system on the rate change and order flow at hourly intervals. We find a significant impact of order flow on the exchange rate, equal on average to 7.6 basis points per 10 million Euro, of which 80 percent persists through the day. The existence of distinct subperiods enables us to estimate the potential effects of intervention in three different states of the market. First, the central bank might perform secret interventions in orderly market conditions, when dealers perceive a low likelihood of their occurrence. Second, secret interventions might take place in a state characterized by a high likelihood of their occurrence. The third state is characterized by the market's knowledge that intervention is indeed taking place. Our results lend support to the theoretical model and provide useful insight on the conditions for effective central bank intervention in the future.

This paper examines foreign exchange intervention practices and their effectiveness using a new qualitative and quantitative database for a panel of 15 economies covering 2004 - 10, with special focus on Latin America. Qualitatively, it examines institutional aspects such as declared motives, instruments employed, the use of rules versus discretion, and the degree of transparency. Quantitatively, it assesses the effectiveness of sterilized interventions in influencing the exchange rate using a two-stage IV-panel data approach to overcome endogeneity bias. Results suggest that interventions slow the pace of appreciation, but the effects decrease rapidly with the degree of capital account openness. At the same time, interventions are more effective in the context of already ?overvalued' exchange rates.

We study the effect of foreign exchange intervention on the exchange rate relying on an instrumental-variables panel approach. We find robust evidence that intervention affects the level of the exchange rate in an economically meaningful way. A purchase of foreign currency of 1 percentage point of GDP causes a depreciation of the nominal and real exchange rates in the ranges of [1.7-2.0] percent and [1.4-1.7] percent respectively. The effects are found to be quite persistent. The paper also explores possible asymmetric effects, and whether effectiveness depends on the depth of domestic financial markets.