Market microstructure and the imperfect common knowledge literature in macroeconomics both analyze the effect of dispersed information on prices. This paper draws on both sources to understand exchange rate forecasting errors. A theoretical model is developed showing that forecasting errors depend on both forecast revisions as in the Woodford noisy information model and order flow as in the Evans-Lyons simultaneous trade model. This is applied to Brazilian data using a unique data set of daily consensus exchange rate forecasts managed by the Banco Central do Brasil along with order flow derived from the FX futures market. The results strongly support the theory.

This book deals with psychological factors, which may be important for understanding the observable exchange rate movements. Thus, the study belongs to the new research field of behavioral economics, which considers the relevance of psychological factors in economic contexts. The main objective of behavioral economists is to develop a more realistic view of the actual human behavior in the context of economics. Central to the concept of behavioral economics is the assumption that humans' actual behavior deviates from the ideal of economic rationality due to at least two reasons: first, decisions are usually based on an incomplete information basis and, second, the information processing of human beings is limited by their computational capacities. Due to these limitations people are forced to apply simple heuristics in information processing. Our aim is to analyze the relevance of simple heuristics in the context of foreign exchange markets. In our view, the decision situation in foreign exchange markets can serve as a prime example for decision situations in which simple heuristics are especially relevant as the complexity of the decision situation is very high.

Both the literature and new empirical evidence show that exchange rate regimes differ primarily by the noisiness of the exchange rate, not be measurable macroeconomic fundamentals. This motivates a theoretical analysis of exchange rate regimes with noise traders. The presence of noise traders can lead to multiple equilibria in the foreign exchange market. The entry of noise traders both create and share the risk associated with exchange rate volatility. In such circumstances, monetary policy can be used to lower exchange rate volatility without altering macroeconomic fundamentals.

This paper investigates the time-varying nature of expectation formation rules for institutional investors in the foreign exchange market. Using a unique dataset of survey expectations for four exchange rates, we first distinguish three different general rules. We find a momentum rule, a fundamental rule, and a rule that takes advantage of interest differentials between countries. Apart from heterogeneity in expectation formation rules, we show that the rules are time-varying conditional on a number of different factors, such as the sign of the most recent return, the forecast horizon, the distance to the PPP rate, and the extent to which the rule produces forecast errors vis-à-vis the market exchange rate. Although we find dynamics in expectation formation for all four exchange rates, the results for the currencies against the Japanese yen deviate from the others.

This paper takes a step towards assessing the importance of the role of prices as signals of aggregate information, by developing an approach to estimating primitive parameters of a noisy rational expectations model under perfect competition, when both prices and terminal values are observable. We show that the equilibrium variance-covariance parameters in the Hellwig (1980) model can be inverted to obtain values of the primitive parameters. This lets us identify the MLE of the precision of private information, using only restrictions on parameter values from the underlying theory and provides, conditional on a level of risk aversion, the MLE of the variance of exogenous supply noise. Using data from a currency futures market we then present estimates of the primitive parameters, of the signal-to-noise ratio, of weights that agents place on different sources of information, and of coefficients in the linear price conjecture.

This paper examines the dynamics of the foreign exchange market. The first half addresses a number of key questions regarding the forecasts of future exchange rates made by market participants, by means of updated estimates using survey data. Here we follow most of the theoretical and empirical literature in acting as if all market participants share the same expectation. The second half then addresses the possibility of heterogeneous expectations, particularly the distinction between “chartists” and “fundamentalists,” and the implications for trading in the foreign exchange market and for the formation of speculative bubbles.